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Dr Rosemary Fricker

Title:	Reader in Biomedical Sciences
Phone:	+44 (0)1782 733874
Email:	r.a.fricker@keele.ac.uk
Location:	Huxley Building : 209
Role:	Module 1 (Year 1) Leader for Keele MBChB Medical Degree
Contacting me:	Try my office or arrange an appointment by e-mail

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I completed my BSc in Applied Biology at Bath University in 1991. From there I moved to Cambridge University to undertake a PhD, investigating factors affecting the survival and function of neural transplants for use in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). In 1995 I moved to the University of Lund, Sweden, to undertake a postdoctoral position, developing neural stem cells for transplantation in HD and PD. In 1998 I travelled to Harvard Medical School and spent two years investigating the potential of neural transplants in the cortex.

I returned to the UK in 2000, and held a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship, with my research group based at Cardiff University. In January 2005, I moved to Keele as a lecturer in the new Medical School, as well as having teaching duties in Life Sciences. I have a research group within the Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine at the University and became a Senior Lecturer in 2008.

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My group currently focuses on the characterisation of immature stem/progenitor cells and their ability for neuronal differentiation and axonal growth, both in vitro and in vivo. We work mainly with neural stem cells from both embryonic and adult tissue, and our research aims to discover both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that govern neuronal differentiation.

We are investigating the growth factor requirements of stem cell populations, and the genetic basis of their potential to differentiate into specific types of neurons. Using cell culture and targeted transplantation studies, we hope to tease out to what extent external signals in the environment drive neuronal differentiation.

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