Articular cartilage can be damaged directly through injury or osteoarthritis (OA). This tissue is very poor at regenerating itself due to its avascular nature and the immobility of chondrocytes within the tissue. There are a range of surgical techniques to repair cartilage lesio…
Cycling is increasing in popularity which is accompanied with a higher rate of injuries sustained due to collisions, crashes or falls. A high proportion of these events happen when the bicycle rider loses control of the bicycle. In order to improve bicycle rider control, the ski…
Visual surveillance finds increasing deployment for monitoring urban environments. Operators need to be able to determine identity from surveillance images and often use face recognition for this purpose. Unfortunately, the quality of the recorded imagery can be insufficient for…
Perhexiline is an anti-anginal drug that is thought to shift myocardial metabolism from \(β\)-oxidation of fatty acids to glucose utilisation. An associated improvement in energy efficiency may be beneficial in ischaemia-reperfusion as an adjunct to established techniques for my…
Phosphoinositides are lipid signals that control cellular processes and are particularly closely associated with the control of membrane trafficking. PtdIns(3,5) \(\char{cmmi10}{0x50}\)\(_2\) is the most recently identified phosphoinositide and was previously recognised as contr…
The introduction of electron capture dissociation mass spectrometry in 1998 has provided a unique technique for the analysis of peptides and proteins, especially for the identification and localisation of posttranslational modifications. Despite many successes debate continues o…
In obesity, lipids stored in muscle as lipid droplets (LDs) lead to accumulation of fatty acid (FA) metabolites and insulin resistance. This research involves development of immunofluorescence microscopy methods to generate novel information on the subcellular content and distri…
The work described in this thesis concerns the synthesis, DNA binding and cytotoxicity studies of new Rh(III) supramolecular complexes. Chapter 1 reviews DNA molecular recognition by synthetic agents; exploring the different DNA binding modes and their importance in the anticanc…
Homocysteine is an amino acid formed by the metabolism of methionine. Increased plasma homocysteine concentrations are associated with cardiovascular disease, and it has been suggested that homocysteine lowering therapy may reduce cardiovascular risk. Plasma homocysteine measure…
How a stimulus, such as an odour, is represented in the brain is one of the main questions in neuroscience. It is becoming clearer that information is encoded by a population of neurons, but, how the spiking activity of a population of neurons conveys this information is unknown…
In this thesis, the design, fabrication and characterisation of a bio-inspired microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based tactile sensor array is presented. A vast amount of research has been carried out in the area of tactile sensing and various transduction methods have been …
The human fungal pathogens Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii cause life-threatening infections of the central nervous system. One of the major characteristics of cryptococcal disease is the ability of the pathogen to parasitise upon phagocytic effector cells. Cryptococcus ca…
This thesis presents four empirical chapters that challenge current sport concussion research and practice. Chapter 2 measured sport concussion knowledge in the UK general public using an online survey. It showed high sport concussion awareness, but limited and erroneous underst…
Metallo-drugs have been highly significant in the development of novel anticancer agents. Supramolecular drug agents allow the design and synthesis of a range of molecular architectures. The work in this thesis has built upon previous knowledge on this subject by undertaking nov…
The aim of this study was to define new quantitative parameters of dynamic Pelvic Floor Muscle (PFM) function using 2D transperineal (TP) ultrasound imaging combined with image processing methods (IPM). Ultrasound and digital vaginal data were obtained from a volunteer convenien…
Static and dynamic balance are essential in daily and sports life. Many factors have been identified as influencing static balance control, two of which are carrying additional weight and localized muscle fatigue but their influence on dynamic balance in sport activities has not…
Skeletal muscle tissue demonstrates a remarkable malleability and can adjust its metabolic and contractile makeup in response to alterations in functional demands. As a result, great diversity exists in muscle physiology, biochemistry and energy metabolism, all of which are unde…