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Daniela Lobo


About my project

I am focused on adapting a viral scaffold into microfluidic setups, for biological applications. It’s an ambitious goal and so it requires collaborations between several other Universities (Nottingham, Bristol, Birmingham, UCL) and a start-up company (Linear Diagnostics). We are interested on modifying a filamentous virus, the M13 bacteriophage, to use as a template for new and versatile diagnostic platforms.
We anchored fluorescently labelled M13 to surfaces (e.g. microscope slides coated with endothelial cells), and tracked flow dynamics. This was designed as a proof-of-concept to test that the functionalised M13 could be used to study the forces and behaviour of blood flow in small capillaries. We successfully developed a biosensor that can detect one of these forces, the wall shear stress (WSS). This is important because it is known that WSS is related to normal vascular phenomena (e.g. angiogenesis) but also diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes and vascular tumours.
We are also interested in developing multiplexed assays with modified versions of the M13 to detect pathogens and small molecules. I am currently seconded with Linear Diagnostics to explore new modes and improvements to this system.

Academic History

September, 2013 - September, 2016: PhD, University of Warwick, Department of Chemistry, Biophysical Chemistry group

  •  'M13-based biosensors for biological applications'

Supervisors: Prof. Alison Rodger, Dr. James Covington, Prof. Tim Dafforn, Dr. Matthew Hicks.

September, 2008 - July, 2013: University of Coimbra, School of Pharmacy (Portugal)

  • Master's Degree on Pharmaceutical Sciences

Previous Experience

May, 2013 - August 2013: UCL, School of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutics (UK)

  • Electrospinning of PEO/SA/Drug 3D nanofibers as a new drug delivery system.

January, 2013 - May, 2013: Community pharmacy intership, Holon Group (Portugal)

  • Adverse reactions reporting and regulatory affairs procedures. Monitoring of drug utilisation. Clinical pharmacy. Responding to symptoms of minor ailments. Small-scale preparation of drugs.

June, 2012 - August, 2012: "Student exchange programme" summer scholarship, Medical University of Warsaw, Immunology department (Poland)

  • Quantitative immunophenotyping analysis of antigen-presenting cells involved in viral diseases using flow cytometry. Cell proliferation assays.

September, 2011 - June, 2012: Histocompatibility Centre, Department of Molecular Biology (Portugal)

  • Characterization of the immune response to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in pacients infected with HCV and patients co-infected with HIV-1/HCV, during therapy with pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin. Association of response mediated by CD8+ T lymphocytes and dendritic cells with treatment success.
July, 2010 - August, 2010: Clinical Analysis Laboratory, Microbiology and Hematology (Portugal)
  • Training on preparing blood and tissue samples. Basics on cell biology and microbiology. Differential diagnosis of viral and self-immune diseases.

Publications

Daniela P. Lobo, Alan M. Wemyss, David J. Smith et al. Direct detection and measurement of wall shear stress using a filamentous bio-nanoparticle. Nano Research, 2015, 8 (10), 3307-3315.


 

Dan

Contact Details

Address:
Chemistry Department, B 608

Email: D.P.C.A.Lobo@warwick.ac.uk