Camelia Tusan

PhD Student (year 4)

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Research Group:

• Bone & Joint

Camelia studied Biochemical Engineering at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca in Romania. In 2014 she received her Bachelor diploma for a work on interactions of proteins with anticancer drugs and isolation and purification of rubredoxin under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu. During her bachelor, she published one original publication: “Evaluation of the Biochemical Effects of Silyl- Phosphaalkenes on Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress Pathways Involving Metallocenters” in Oct 2014 (DOI: 10.1080/10426507.2014.884090). From July 2014 to September 2014 she was a guest student in Forschungszentrum Julich, Germany, where she worked with Dr. Iris der von Hocht on the expression and purification of connexin hCx26.

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The effect of extracellular matrix stiffness and dimension in collective cellular mechanosensing 

In October 2014, she moved to Southampton to start her PhD in stem cell research under the supervision of Dr. Nick Evans, Dr. Eileen Gentleman, Prof. Shoufeng Yang and Dr. Bram Sengers. Her research focuses on the effects of the mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix such as stiffness and dimension in collective cellular mechanosensig. Within this project, she published a book chapter: Extracellular matrix structure and stem cell mechanosensing in Mechanobiology: Exploitation for medical Benefit in January 2017 (SBN: 978-1-118-96614-3) and she sent a paper for publication. She has also presented her research at national and international conferences and in 2016 she won the first prize for the best oral presentation at an international conference: Future Investigators in Regenerative Medicine, Girona, Spain.