Anna Ludlaim

Anna Ludlaim is a PhD Student at Manchester Metropolitan University and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital under the supervision of Prof. Tristan Mackay, Prof. Simon Jones and Dr. Aimee Donald. Her research focuses on “Using Patient iPSC-derived Neural Cells to Study Neuronopathic Lysosomal Storage Disorders (Gaucher Disease and CLN7 Batten Disease)”. She reprogrammes fibroblasts taken from patients with neuronopathic lysosomal storage disorders to produce patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). She then performs targeted differentiation of these iPSC to produce neural cells which form a more clinically relevant model of neuronopathic disease. She performs molecular phenotyping and transcriptomics on these models with the aim of identifying clinical biomarkers to stratify neuronopathic forms of disease, predict outcomes and define novel druggable targets.