Appointment boosts neuro research in Plymouth
Dr. Barros obtained her five-year Diploma in Biology from the Lisbon Sciences University, Portugal, followed in 2003 by her PhD from the University of Cambridge. In late 2003, she became a postdoctoral associate fellow in the laboratory of Professor Ulrich Müller at the Dorris Neuroscience Center of The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, USA. Her studies focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms which influence neural development and function. Dr. Barros returned to the UK in Autumn 2009 and after a brief stay at the Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics, Oxford University, she was awarded an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, UK to start in late 2010 as a Research Fellow at Bangor University, Wales. In her new post at Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, her research team investigates regulatory mechanisms responsible for the development and maintenance of postembryonic neural stem cells in the brain in normal and disease conditions, such as during brain tumour formation. Current research primarily makes use of the central nervous system of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) as a model, and involves functional genetics, gene expression and imaging studies to identify the underlying signals that control postembryonic neural stem cell activation, cell fate and cell differentiation. Research has been published in a number of respected journals, including Developmental Cell , Molecular Psychiatry , Journal of Neuroscience , Development and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) .
