I received my Bachelor of Pharmacy degree at the University of London in the United Kingdom in 1991, and after registration as a pharmacist with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, I completed a Master’s degree in Neuroscience, and a Ph.D. in Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry (Maudsley Hospital) which is also part of the University of London. My thesis was a pharmacogenetic study, investigating the influence of genetic variation of serotonin-2 receptors on response to the antipsychotic drug, clozapine. My postdoctoral training was in the laboratory of Professor Paul Harrison at the University of Oxford, where I received a Medical Research Council training fellowship to study the postmortem gene expression of serotonin-2 receptors in schizophrenia. This fellowship funded my move to the USA to work on serotonin-2C RNA editing with Dr. Elaine Sanders-Bush at Vanderbilt University and I subsequently joined the faculty of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University in 2004.  Since my arrival in the United States I have received Young Investigator Awards from the National Alliance of Research into Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD, 2004 and 2006), the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP, 2008) and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP, 2009).

My current position is that of Assistant Professor at the UAB Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, where my laboratory is investigating the contribution of RNA editing to the etiologies of psychosis, depression and suicide. Research is focusing on identifying genetic predictors for suicide, which is prevalent in most psychiatric disorders. RNA editing has a profound impact on the function of many centrally active proteins, including several glutamate receptor subunits, the serotonin_2C (5-HT_2C) receptor, the potassium channel Kv1.1, the GABAα3 receptor subunit in addition to 16% of identified microRNAs. We are investigating the interactions of genetic and transcriptional variation in the postmortem brains of psychiatric patients in collaboration with Dr. Joel Kleinman (NIMH), and also in a large cohort of African American schizophrenia patients in collaboration with Drs. Rodney Go and Robert Savage (UAB). These studies aim to identify markers of suicide risk in addition to finding new targets for improved psychotropic drug therapy.