FIONA GILCHRIST BSc MSc PhD
Marie Curie Research Fellow

e: fiona.gilchrist@ul.ie

t: +353-61-213019

Dr. Fiona Gilchrist is researching the prospective gene expression analysis which accurately subtypes acute leukaemia in children. Her research interests encompasses drug delivery agents and cancer research with a strong emphasis on gene expression profiles for the diagnosis of childhood leukaemias. She graduated from the University of Sussex, UK in 1995 with an honours BSc degree (2i) in Biological Science. Following this she was awarded a scholarship by the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK to complete an MSc in Biotechnology which she graduated from in 1996. Subsequent to this she was employed as a research assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Fiona was involved in targeting cancer cells using synthetic biopolymers in collaboration with the Cancer Research Centre (CRC) at the University of Birmingham, UK. She was subsequently awarded a CASE scholarship and was sponsored by Amersham Biosciences, Cardiff, UK to undertake her phD studies at the University of Aston in Birmingham, UK (1998-2002). She was subsequently employed as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK. She was sponsored by the EPSRC and researched FRET probes for the selective imaging of carcinomas and nuclear drug targeting. Fiona was subsequently employed by the School of Pharmacy at University College Cork (UCC) for a period of one year (2003-2004) where she was investigating the potential use of cyclodextrins as drug delivery agents. In the Summer of 2004 Fiona was awarded a prestigious scholarship by the Health Research Board of Ireland to attend the US National Cancer Institute Summer Curriculum in Cancer Prevention.