Dr Fiona Saunders

Biography

I studied Biomedical Sciences, specialising in Pharmacology at the University of Aberdeen. I graduated in 2004 with upper second class honours. My honours project was a literature review assessing the role of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) as a potential class of chemopreventative agents for colorectal cancer, supervised by Prof. Heather Wallace. This lead toa PhD studying the role of polyamines in the chemoprevantative actions of NSAIDs in a colorectal cell line models, again supervised by Prof. Heather Wallace, awarded in 2009.

I then move to the Orthopaedic Research group, led by Prof Richard Aspden to work with Dr Jenny Gregory on her MRC New Investigator award investigating bone shape in knee osteoarthritis, first as a Research Assistant and then as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. I also worked as a Technician and Resaerch Manager within the wider Bone & Musculoskeletal group. I then worked with Prof. Richard Aspden, Dr Jenny Gregory and Dr Rebecca Barr as one of two Post-Docs investigating the life course and bone shape in the hip and spine, funded by the MRC in collaboration with the MRC Unit of Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL.

I then moved to laboratory of Dr Fiona Murray within the IMS to study the role of GPR75 in the pancreas funded by the Wellcome Trust ISSF fund for 6 months. I then returned to the Orthopaedic group for 6 months to complete the MRC funded work before returning to Dr Murray's lab to work on GRP75, funded by the Wellcome Trust for 18 months.

I moved back to the Orthopaedic group to take up the position of Post-Doc on a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Grant, led by Prof. Jon Tobias at the University of Bristol to derive bone phenotypes from 100,000 participant's DXA scans using statistical shape modelling (SSM) aquired as part of the UK BioBank.

I moved to Prof Val Speirs lab in 2023 working on several projects related to breast cancer and developing animal-free culture systems.

Current Research

I currently work in the lab of Prof Val Speirs. The lab's main interest is Breast Cancer and in particular understanding the differences between male and female breast cancers. We are also working on developing animal-free culture systems.

I have worked as a Post-Doc on a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Project led by Prof. Jon Tobias, University of Bristol. Partners in this grant are University of Bristol, University of Manchester, University of Aberdeen, University of Southampton, Cardiff University, University of Oxford and University of Queensland Diamatina Institute.

In this project we were deriving bone phenotypes from DXA scans acquired from 100,000 participants of the UK BioBank. This work was to develop and test statisical shape models of the hips and knees. We then looked at the associations between outcomes such as Osteoarthritis and shape models. GWAS and Mendalian Analysis were also perfomed to investigate genetic associations. We have also derived spine bone shape phenotypes as part of this large-scale project.

Past Research

National Survey of Health and Development - Associations between life course factors and statistical shape models of the hip and spine

Prof Rachel Cooper (Newcastle, fomerly UCL), Prof Rebecca Hardy (Loughborough, formerly UCL), Prof Diana Kuh (Emerita UCL), Dr Stella Muthuri (Fomerly UCL), Dr Rebecca Barr (Dundee, fomerly Aberdeen), Dr Jenny Gregory, Dr Kathryn Martin, Dr Anastasia Pavlova (RGU, formerly Aberdeen), Prof Richard Aspden

Collaborations

AUGMENT Statistical Shape modelling of the UK Biobank imaging cohort - Prof Jon Tobias (Bristol), Prof Tim Cootes (Manchester), Prof Nick Harvey (Southampton)

Dr Katherine Brooke-Wavell, Loughborough University - statistical shape modelling of DXA scans from exercise intervention studies and athletes.