Oliver Curry

I graduated in 2023 from the University of Leeds with an MChem, BSc in Medicinal Chemistry with a Year in Industry. My placement year project with Unilever focussed on the stabilisation of anhydrous formulations with naturally derived polymer, colloidal, and surfactant structuring systems. During my Master's project, I continued my work in soft matter chemistry by creating a novel, tuneable, diffusion mediated system for liposome-encapsulated esterase pH switches. Current Project As a student of the Chemistry in Cells CDT, I am co-supervised by Dr Ricardo Marquez Gomez of the Wade-Martins Group, and Dr Linna Zhou of the Bayley Group. My project aims to combine strengths of the two groups, neuronal cultures and cell printing, to create a 3D printed droplet system to mimic neuronal circuits. The circuit will contain cortical, dopamine, and striatal neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). This human-derived 3D multi-neuronal circuit will mimic the triad in human brains better than the current standard of 2D hiPSC cultures and yield insight on the translatability of animal models to human systems. It is hoped that this research will expand our understanding of the cortical-dopaminergic-striatal circuits and their relevance to the physiopathology of PD.