Centre of Metabolism, Ageing, and Physiology
 

PAULA SCAIFE

Technical Specialist in Mass Spectrometry, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

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Biography

In 2005 I completed my PhD in Reproductive Immunology entitled "The role of decidual T lymphocytes in human pregnancy". This project was carried out at Newcastle University under the supervision of Professor Stephen Robson, Dr Judith Bulmer and Dr Roger Searle and involved investigation, at the cellular level, of human intrauterine immune responses to pregnancy.

Following on from I moved to the University of Nottingham where I worked with Professor David Gardner examining the effect of nutritional programming on kidney regulation of blood pressure. I then moved to Professor Fiona Broughton Pipkin's research group performing investigation of the placental renin-angiotensin system and the role of folic acid in placental development and folate transport within the placenta. Additionally I worked on the WTCCC3 GWAS for pre-eclamspia with Dr Linda Morgan.

Expertise Summary

  • Mass spectrometry
  • Clinical Measurements
  • Placental biology
  • Reproductive Immunology
  • Molecular biology techniques, including all aspects of quantitative real time PCR from primer design and assay optimisation to analysis and presentation of data.
  • Cell and tissue culture, including primary cell isolation (decidual leucoytyes and placental extravillous trophoblast, murine neural cell culture), matrigel based extravillous trophoblast invasion assays. Also culture using trophoblast cell lines including JAR, JEG, BeWo and HTR. Also worked with various continuous cell lines including BCEC1, HD11, HT29, CaCO2, K562, P815, THP-1 and HeLa.
  • Tumour spheroid generation using canine osteosarcoma cells D17 and MG63.
  • Immunohistochemistry, including immunofluorescence and TUNEL, imaging, all aspects of slide preparation including processing and paraffin wax embedding of tissue and use of microtome and cryostat. Rapid staining protocols for use with laser capture microdissection. Use of BondMax and ThermoShandon automated staining systems and Sequenza staining system.
  • Flow cytometry cell cycle analysis using propidium iodide labelling. Additionally I have used FACS to isolate decidual and peripheral blood leucocytes.
  • Aseptic techniques.
  • Chromium release assays, including working with radioactive isotopes.
  • Cytokine analysis using multiplex technology.
  • ELISA and ELISPOT assays.

Research Summary

I work for the Clinical, Metabolic and Molecular Physiology research group.

Selected Publications

Clinical, Metabolic and Molecular Physiology

Division of Medical Sciences and Graduate Entry Medicine
The University of Nottingham
Royal Derby Hospital
Uttoxeter Road, Derby, DE22 3DT


telephone: +44 (0)1332 724622
email:gem@nottingham.ac.uk