Directors
Steve Hill and Steve Watson have known each other for over 30 years, and have complementary expertise in G-protein coupled receptors and tyrosine-kinase coupled receptors. They have a joint vision of identifying new ways to visualise these receptors using advanced microscopy to identify novel biologics and small molecular weight inhibitors with the aim of combating cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Steve Hill is a Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the molecular pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and their signalling, with a special interest in single ligand-receptor interactions in membrane microdomains.
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Steve Watson is a British Heart Foundation Professor in Cardiovascular Sciences and Cellular Pharmacology and head of the Birmingham Platelet Group. His research focuses on platelet function in health and disease with a special interest in tyrosine kinase-coupled receptors and their signalling pathways.
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Deputy Directors
Iain Styles
Iain is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science, Deputy Director of COMPARE and Co-Director of the EPSRC Research and Training Centres in Physical Sciences of Imaging for the Biomedical Sciences and Physical Sciences for Healthcare. His research interests span a range of computational topics in imaging and image analysis including microscopic image analysis, optical image reconstruction, and mass spectrometry imaging.
Jeanette Woolard
Jeanette is a Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology and Pharmacology in the School of Life Sciences and Deputy Director of COMPARE. She uses a variety of in vivo cardiovascular models to investigate the molecular pharmacology of ligand-receptor interactions. She obtained a first class Honours BSc degree in Life Sciences (1997) and an MSc in Cardiovascular Pharmacology (1999) from Queen’s University, Canada. Subsequently, Jeanette moved to the UK to undertake PhD studies with Professors Terry Bennett and Sheila Gardiner at the University of Nottingham (2002). During this time, she was introduced to their novel in vivo cardiovascular model that allows simultaneous monitoring of blood flow velocity in three different vascular beds in a whole-model system, whilst also continuously monitoring mean arterial pressure and heart rate.
Imaging Officers
Joëlle Goulding - Research Fellow in Advanced Microscopy,
University of Nottingham
In April 2017, Joëlle Goulding was appointed as Research Fellow in Advanced Microscopy for COMPARE at the University of Nottingham. Joëlle completed her PhD in Nottingham in Genetics and following a postdoc studying adult stem cells in the cerebellum she joined the Cell Signalling Research Group headed by Prof Steve Hill. Within the group she has employed a number of imaging techniques and analysis strategies to study the pharmacology of Class A GPCRs. Most recently, Joëlle has worked on a collaborative BHF funded grant developing imaging techniques to study how polymorphic variants of the β2-adrenergic receptor can affect receptor function within stem cells and differentiated cell types.
Joëlle has a particular interest in imaging stem cells and methods of investigating endogenous levels of receptor expression. She will be continuing to develop research within fluorescence correlation spectroscopy alongside testing methodologies for the study of membrane receptors with the newly acquired Olympus LV200 and PhaseFocus Livecyte.
Dee Kavanagh – Microscope Officer, University of Birmingham
In March 2017, Dr Dee Kavanagh joined COMPARE as the microscope officer at the University of Birmingham. Dee received her PhD in microfluidics in 2012 from Heriot-Watt University before carrying out her post-doctoral research within the Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Centre (ESRIC), where she applied advanced imaging techniques to study regulated secretion at the level of single proteins. Here, she gained expertise in single molecule microscopies as well as single photon counting techniques. These techniques are extremely powerful tools to probe the interactions, conformations, dynamics and the nano-scale positions of proteins in cells. In her role at COMPARE, Dee will work closely to support users to optimize and develop their research ideas using advanced imaging techniques. She will provide specialist training for the microscopy technologies available at COMPARE, including single molecule microscopies, structured illumination, single plane illumination, TIRF microscopy and confocal microscopy.
Jeremy Pike – Research Fellow in Image Analysis,
University of Birmingham
Jeremy Pike joined COMPARE in 2017 as a Research Fellow in Image Analysis and is based at the University of Birmingham. Jeremy completed his PhD in Birmingham where he developed automated image analysis workflows to quantify receptor trafficking using confocal microscopy. Subsequently he worked as an image analyst and microscopy specialist at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. Here he developed expertise in a range of analysis techniques and applied these methods to applications in cancer research, including the development of automated feedback microscopy protocols.
In his role at COMPARE Jeremy will collaborate with research groups to design image analysis workflows. Alongside this, he will provide a range of training courses using leading open-source software.
Group Leaders
Jason Mercer
University of Birmingham
Dylan Owen
University of Birmingham
Coventry University (Honorary Professor, University of Birmingham)
Management and Administration Team
COMPARE PI Technology Spotlight
The Technology Spotlight (PDF) is a compendium of research questions and technologies used by COMPARE PIs. This document has been created to assist colleagues in establishing collaborative areas of research across COMPARE.