Neena Kalia

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Neena Kalia’s research and doctoral supervision is focused on identifying the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying ischaemia-reperfusion (IR) injury, particularly the contributory role of platelets. She is also determining strategies, particularly the use of adult bone marrow-derived stem cells, that may be of therapeutic benefit following IR injury. Haematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells (HSC and MSC) can migrate to injured tissues and help in tissue repair. However, the events that govern their recruitment to injured tissue microcirculation are unclear. Therefore, the research being done by Dr Kalia and her team focuses on examining the molecular adhesive events involved in HSC/MSC recruitment to different vascular beds following injury, including the liver, gut, kidney and muscle. Inflammatory and stem cell trafficking is monitored predominantly by state-of-the-art confocal-based intravital microscopy which allows real-time and dynamic microcirculatory images to be captured in vivo. This technique allows numerous microcirculatory disturbances to be quantitated including the various events of the adhesion cascade (rolling/adhesion/transmigration) and also changes in vascular integrity.