ISTM

Joanna Miest undertook her undergraduate studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany, where she obtained her Diploma of Biology. As part of her studies she undertook a 1 year research project in the group of Prof. Hans-Otto Pörtner at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Working to explore the potential effects of climate change on fish, she investigated the effect of temperature on the metabolism of hepatocytes in different populations of cod. After her Diploma she worked at eurelations AG in Zurich, Switzerland for four months as a project assistant. Joanna was responsible for providing training in relation to public research funding, and assisted in producing project applications to the European Commission and Swiss Foundation.

Joanna started her PhD at Keele in May 2009. She is part of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network, and is working within the NEMO project (www.nemo-network.eu), exploring 'Protective Immune Modulation in Warm Water Fish by Feeding Glucans'. Under the supervision of Prof. Dave Hoole, she will be applying a range of molecular, cell biology and pathology techniques to investigate the role of ß-glucans in modulating apoptosis in carp. She will be utilising immuno-competent cells and carp leucocyte cell lines to determine the effect of glucans and pathogenic organisms (e.g. KHV and Aeromonas hydrophila) on cell death, and using sequences of genes previously shown to have an important role in apoptotis to design specific primers for real-time quantitative PCR analysis of gene expression induced by ß-glucan. Characterisation of apoptosis in cells, either in situ in affected organs or in isolated leucocytes, will be carried out through cytochemistry and flow cytometry.