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Spectral spaces: approaching dimensional colour through sculptural practice
No full textIn this practice-based research, I investigate how colour can function as a dynamic, formative element of sculpture and sculptural installation. Drawing on colour theory and the concept of ‘entanglement’ from environmental humanities and multispecies studies, I explore the relational and dimensional nature of colour. By entering a sculptural space through colour, I map out the different material-chromatic states that sculpture can take, positioning colour as a driving force in both the evolution of sculpture and the cultivation of ecological awareness.
I begin with the notion of colourform, which implies that colour can only be experienced in conjunction with form, to develop novel ways of thinking about colour in sculpture and working with colour sculpturally. Drawing on Karen Barad’s concept of ‘entanglement’ as ‘intra-action’, I develop the idea of intra-action of colour as a process through which colour emerges via dynamic intra-relations rather than in isolation.
I explore the possibility of disentanglement and introduce the concept of colour extinction to examine how the loss of specific colour combinations in the natural world alters one’s aesthetic experience of the environment, and how this phenomenon can be investigated through sculpture. I consider this within the broader context of the current ecological crisis, particularly the ongoing mass extinction. Finally, I propose the idea of acchromatising, as the process and practice of gradual attunement towards a place and its multifaceted relationships through colour.
Through the lens of sculptural practice, this thesis evidences how colour can play a pivotal role in reshaping our perceptions and interactions with our surroundings. Beyond sculpture, this approach encourages the development of ecological sensitivity and empathetic understanding towards the environments where human and non-human worlds coexist
Impaired ketogenesis is implicated in intestinal stem cell function and epithelial regeneration in ulcerative colitis
No full textEpithelial repair and regeneration is key to mucosal healing in Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Intestinal stem cells (ISCs) drive this response, proliferating and differentiating from the base of the crypt to regenerate the entire epithelium. ISCs therefore exist in a highly active state and resultantly are vulnerable to changes in energy dynamics in the intestine. Mitochondria, which amongst other functions are critical for energy production are therefore crucial for maintenance of the stem cell niche are significantly implicated in UC pathogenesis. Up to now, the mechanisms of how mitochondrial dysfunction influence ISC function in UC is not known. To investigate this, we used single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), single cell quantitative immunofluorescence and single cell energetic metabolism by profiling translation inhibition (SCENITH) on treatment-naïve UC patient epithelial samples and on UC patient derived organoids.
Single-cell quantitative immunofluorescence showed a loss of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation proteins Complex I and IV, necessary for ATP production in the UC epithelium. Moreover, in UC-derived organoids from ISCs, we show persistence in mitochondrial damage as evidenced by immunofluorescence and scRNA-seq data that showed also defective mitophagy (PINK1) and mitochondrial biogenesis (PPARGC1α) in ex vivo culture conditions. This data suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction is a stable feature of ISCs and potentially can be propagated during division and differentiation into multiple progeny epithelial lineages to occupy the entire epithelial compartment. In parallel, scRNA-seq of the UC epithelial cells showed significant downregulation of metabolic pathways in ISCs, with de-regulation of fatty acid metabolism pathways, particularly ketogenesis, with HMGCS2 as the top downregulated gene in UC ISCs.
HMGCS2, the rate limiting mitochondrial matrix enzyme in the ketogenesis pathway, producing βHB, which alongside providing metabolites for the mitochondrial tricarboxylic acid TCA cycle, has important roles in stem cell fate-signalling. We show that HGMCS2 expression was reduced throughout the intestinal crypt in active UC, and is increased in patients responding to therapy with mucosal healing. We find via colorimetric assay that colonic organoids secrete βHB, and production is reduced in active UC.
We identify PPARα, a known key inducer of HGMCS2 transcription as being significantly downregulated in UC. We find HGMCS2 expression and βHB production can be restored in UC organoids via administration of PPARα agonist, fenofibrate. We performed scRNA-seq of βHB treated UC organoids finding that βHB specifically enhance the transcriptome of pathways that regulate mitochondrial function and reduces cellular stress, particularly in ISCs, by downregulating genes associated with cellular stress and protein misfolding (SOD2, HSPD1), as well as mitochondrial fission (FIS1, DNM1L). Specifically, βHB induces expression of key mitophagy related genes, aiding clearance of faulty mitochondria (PINK1). Functionally, we showed that βHB restored OXPHOS capacity in UC organoids as measured by SCENITH and reduced the production of cellular and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species, as measured by CellRox. Finally, HMGCS2 protein expression significantly increases in responders to medical therapy with mucosal healing.
In newly diagnosed UC patients we provide evidence to show a crucial role in HMGCS2-mediated ketogenesis in ISC function. This phenotype can be rescued with βHB supplementation or pharmacologic induction of ketogenesis, thereby implicating the ketogenic pathway in UC pathogenesis and the potential for a novel metabolic therapy
William Bell Scott's 'Decorative painting of a pictorial kind': history and national identity
No full textThis thesis provides new research into William Bell Scott (1811–90), a nineteenth-century Edinburgh-born artist whose oeuvre has rarely been the subject of in-depth published scholarship. It analyses his most important works: the large-scale decorative schemes that he designed for a range of architectural interiors and termed ‘decorative painting of a pictorial kind’. These comprise a scheme for the central hall of Wallington, the country house of Sir Walter and Lady Pauline Trevelyan in Northumberland, north-east England, undertaken from 1856 to 1868; the King’s Quair mural (1865¬–8) in Penkill Castle, the home of the artist Alice Boyd in Ayrshire, south-west Scotland; and designs for the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), London, begun in 1864 and completed in 1871, including stained-glass windows for the Lecture Theatre staircases and Keramic Gallery. The King’s Quair screen (1867–8) – an item of furniture that derives from the King’s Quair mural – is introduced as another example of Scott’s pictorial decorative painting. The thesis assesses these works in terms of a theme that is common to each: the representation of history subjects as assertions of national identity.
This is the first study to compare the schemes to each other; moreover, the King’s Quair mural has never been published on in detail, nor had the King’s Quair screen and individual Keramic Gallery windows been analysed before. Due to the lack of existing secondary information, the thesis is based on extensive archival research, employing documents such as Scott’s letters, manuscripts and Boyd’s diaries. A key resource is four albums of drawings and preliminary studies by Scott that are held by the National Galleries of Scotland. Additionally, the cultural significance of the schemes is determined by assembling a wealth of printed primary sources. The visual and material properties of the schemes are scrutinised, and those schemes that were damaged, removed or never completed are reimagined and reconstructed.
By reinterpreting the schemes in this way, the thesis argues that Scott’s works at Wallington were more fully realised than the pictorially decorated interiors attempted by other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle in the 1850s. The King’s Quair mural was more completed than those planned by William Morris for Red House. And the History of the Art of Pottery windows were an important contribution to an endeavour to develop educational decorations for the South Kensington Museum.
Scott is also identified as a valuable commentator on his Victorian milieu, regarding issues such as historical processes, the revival of ‘national romance’ and the rivalry generated by international trade exhibitions. Submitted in fulfilment of a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership studentship, the thesis supports the National Galleries of Scotland, which holds a substantial collection of works by Scott, including the King’s Quair screen
Race, masculinity and citizenship-making in Singapore
No full textExtant scholarship on citizenship has focused primarily on the lived experiences and exclusions of women, queer and migrant communities. Since the construction of the citizen has been historically been a white, bourgeois, masculine construction, this tendency in citizenship studies to focus on those excluded from this construction is unsurprising. However, I argue that an interrogation of that which is taken-for-granted, such as masculinity, in the conceptualisation of citizenship, is necessarily in order to denaturalise such assumptions in the first place.
This research focuses on the construction of masculinities among Singaporean men in their everyday lives. Its purpose is two-fold: to investigate the intersections of masculinity and race in such constructions, and to connect them to broader citizenship-making practices. In Singapore, meritocracy and multiracialism are two central ideological tools that are employed by the state to produce particular forms of citizenship and claims to belonging. My research sheds light on the connections and dialogic relationship between masculinity, race, and the ideological coupling of both meritocracy and multiracialism, by highlighting how masculinity and race are constructed in everyday lives as a form of citizenship-making practice.
For the purposes of this research, I recruited 30 cis-het Singaporean men from various racial backgrounds, who were between 25 and 50 years old and conducted one to two rounds semi-structured interviews. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions, I conducted these interviews both online and in-person in Singapore. My fieldwork lasted from September 2020 to August 2021. Utilising a decolonial intersectional methodology, I employed both thematic and narrative data analysis methods to analyse data co-constructed with my participants.
My findings illustrate the workings of race and masculinity through participants’ experiences navigating various citizenship-making sites, namely: schooling, national service, work, and family. Participants’ experiences of race and masculinity are necessarily situated within broader ideologies of national identity and citizenship, and embedded in an assemblage of social policies. Often, these experiences and constructions of racialised masculinity among participants are also shaped by masculine norms around class and around definitions of adulthood. I illustrated how men experienced multiple contradictions and tensions while navigating different citizenship sites, where masculinity can take on different and even conflicting meanings in these spaces. This effect is further exacerbated by unintended consequences from contradictory social policies. For example, even though national service is seen as a place where “boys become men”, participants perceive the two years spent in national service as a hindrance to their careers, preventing them from earning as much as women. Rhetoric of meritocracy and multiracialism, together with policies and ideologies that uphold its principals, serve to obfuscate gendered, racialised, and classed inequalities.
At its heart, this research dissertation is about investigating relations of power and marginalisation that manifest and produce particular ways of being and becoming masculine. It connects the everyday lives of the individual masculine, racialised, and classed citizen, with the nation-state, and sheds light on how this relationship between citizen and state is mediated through citizenship-making practices and citizenship-making sites
“When you are eating food, you are alive, but for life in your mind you have to have something more”: everyday informal support among refugees at a social kitchen in Athens
No full textTaking as its starting point the struggles of refugees in Athens, this thesis explores everyday informal practices and relations of support in the face of the precarity of long-term urban displacement. It is situated in a context of intertwined “crises”: the impact of the 2009 financial recession; the hostile bordering policies following the unprecedented arrival of more than a million refugees in 2015-16; and the COVID-19 pandemic with its strict restrictions and policing. Refugees have to navigate a complex environment of marginality where the erosion of state welfare leads to limited assistance and insufficient routes to integration, in addition to wider prevailing employment insecurity. These are realities of urban precarity that in Athens refugees share with the local poor, including their mechanisms of coping with marginalisation. In addition, hostile asylum policies result in an arguably deeper social isolation. As a result, in an attempt to structure their everyday lives in the temporariness of displacement, refugees have to also rely on informal networks of support to help meet their need for physical and emotional well-being. In this context the research aims to answer what practices do refugees employ to navigate urban marginality in Athens what is the role of informal relations of support in their coping mechanisms and what shape do they take?
Previous research has focussed on the life of refugees in humanitarian settings and protracted displacement, showing how the humanitarian reason shapes living conditions of dependency and undermines refugees’ political and moral subjectivities, but also how these processes are resisted (Allan 2014; Dudley 2010; Feldman 2018a). In contrast, there is less understanding of the everyday life of refugees in urban displacement particularly in a European context. This research focuses on this context in an attempt to understand how refugees navigate urban marginality and legal precarity (Fontanari 2019; Sanyal 2012), and the tactics they develop - in De Certeau’s sense (1984) - to meet basic physical and emotional needs. The research is based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork at a social kitchen in Athens, a setting of solidarity established by international volunteers. Through cooking with, and for, refugees and through informal discussions and semi-structured interviews, I explored the practices they employ to overcome everyday challenges. Reflecting the demographics of urban refugees and the priorities of aid to families and unaccompanied minors, the majority of my interlocutors were young men who had arrived in Greece alone and were living undocumented. During the fieldwork, and over continuing chats and follow-up discussions, I observed the materialisation of claims to a liveable life and the ordinary city through interpersonal relations and mundane acts of support (Anderson et al. 2015; Brownlie and Anderson 2017) practised by refugees.
I conceptualise informality with relation to who or how it is practiced by, broadly as happening through two interrelated dimensions of the material and the emotional. On the personal level, I intend informal practices as agentic acts that fall outside the normative order of cities and refugees employ to meet their needs, such as food, accommodation, finance and employment (Lombard 2014). With regards to interpersonal relations, I consider informal support as mundane acts happening between people outside institutional frameworks. In the wider ecosystem of support in Athens, I frame informal relations of support facilitated through networks as practices that happen ‘beyond’ the state (Polese et al. 2018).
In unpacking these dimensions of informality, I focus on three distinct everyday practices and the mundane encounters that these enable. The first involves the role of food and consumption that, as I argue, goes beyond the mere need for sustenance, through cultural proximity can act as a glue that connects and allow relations of trust to emerge. Having established the kitchen as a place of familiarity and support in the wider geographies of care in Athens, I then turn to how this trust is mediated through refugee-to-refugee support that further deepens interpersonal ties in a context where suspicion of strangers is abundant. The third practice concerns friendships and the management of emotional lives through these interpersonal connections. Framing these through the lens of personal communities (Pahl and Spencer 2004), I situate them as significant emotional relationships in the context of everyday life in displacement.
Overall, I argue that refugees negotiate their needs and desires in ways that challenge the subjectivisations and conventional hierarchies of needs in refugeedom. Through these informal practices, refugees not only manage to meet their needs, but they also find new routes to challenge bordering structures and social exclusions by opening possibilities for participation in civic life
Development of drug-loaded PLGA microparticles to target microglial immunosuppression during glioblastoma
No full textDrugs and therapies used to treat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) need to be able to enter the brain,
which is often confounded by the blood-brain barrier, meaning that treatments either have low
bioavailability in the brain, or require invasive surgery for delivery. One solution to this has been the
development of particle delivery systems for non-invasive delivery of therapeutics, allowing for
improved bioavailability, increased therapeutic stability, and the ability for cell-specific targeting.
Thus, current research approaches to designing nano- and micro-particle drug delivery systems for
GBM are discussed in Chapter 1.
Attempts to develop new immunotherapies, or repurpose immunotherapies that have been
successful in other solid tumours, have largely failed to work against GBM. It is likely that this lack of
success is due to the highly immunosuppressive microenvironment tumour cells promote by driving
local microglia and macrophages towards tumour-supportive, anti-inflammatory phenotypes. The
work presented in this thesis therefore focuses on repurposing existing immune-stimulatory drugs,
imiquimod, prostratin, and 2-NP, for use in GBM, by developing a poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA)-
based microparticle for microglia-targeted drug delivery.
Chapter 3 focuses on creating PLGA microparticles, testing single and double emulsion evaporation
methods for their drug loading efficiencies and microparticle size, ultimately settling on a protocol
using single emulsion with a high encapsulation efficiency across a range of drugs. The rate of drug
release from microparticles is also examined in Chapter 3, as well as the creation of fluorescently
labelled microparticles to allow for microparticle tracking during biological experiments.
In Chapter 4, the microparticles and selected drugs are examined for their behaviour in the brain,
using zebrafish models to assess the impact of microparticles on microglial inflammation and tumour
growth. It was confirmed that drug-loaded microparticles were able to upregulate inflammatory
cytokine expression in zebrafish microglia. Finally, using a zebrafish HRASv12 preneoplastic model of
glioma, it was observed that treatment with all three types of drug-loaded microparticle were able to
reduce tumour volume, particularly imiquimod-loaded microparticles.
Overall, using PLGA microparticles as a tool for drug delivery, this research highlights a potential role
for imiquimod, prostratin and 2-NP for treating immunosuppression in GBM, and further steps
required to take these treatments towards a clinical setting are discussed in Chapter 5
Setting the agenda: Rooting future woodland restoration research in practitioner needs
Get PDFThis report examines what knowledge woodland restoration practitioners say they need, with the goal of co-developing a shared plan for future research with researchers. We used a mixed- methods approach: an online survey, in-depth interviews, and a collaborative workshop. We bring together findings from all three to identify priority knowledge gaps; show how shortages in evidence, knowledge sharing, or practical implementation contribute to those gaps; and propose actions that practitioners and researchers can take to address them. We also consider how external factors — such as policy, funding, and organisational capacity — shape what is possible. The report concludes with a shared vision for future research in woodland restoration
Regulation of Cdc42 GEF Scd1 by stress in fission yeast
No full textCell polarity, characterized by the asymmetric distribution of cellular components, is essential for diverse cellular functions such as differentiation, migration, and cell division. The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe serves as an effective model organism for studying cell polarity due to its straightforward, polarized rod-shaped growth and conserved molecular pathways analogous to those in higher eukaryotes. In S. pombe, environmental stresses activate the Stress-Activated Protein Kinase (SAPK) pathway, a conserved MAP kinase cascade found across species from yeast to humans. Sty1 kinase, the MAP kinase within the SAPK pathway, disperses the conserved polarity regulator Cdc42 and its guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) Scd1 from cell tips. This study aims to elucidate the molecular basis of Scd1 removal from cell tips upon Sty1 activation.
I identified Scd1 interactors using immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry (IP-MS) under stressed and unstressed conditions. To specifically study SAPK effects, I used Stress-Independent Sty1 Activation (SISA) system which replaces wild-type Sty1 with an analog-sensitive allele, allowing precise activation without other stress pathways interference. Combining data-dependent and data-independent acquisition (DDA and DIA), I identified a network of Scd1 interactors—including Scd2, SEA complex proteins, Tea proteins, and Rho1 GEFs—and established DIA as a sensitive method for pulldown analysis. Time-course experiments revealed that Scd1 remains associated with its partners during Sty1 activation, suggesting regulation within a stable complex. Functional analysis of domain deletion mutants showed that the CH, DH, and PB1 domains are required for Scd1 localization and activity, while its unstructured region mediates dispersal upon Sty1 activation. Finally, phosphoproteomics identified Sty1-dependent phosphorylation sites on Scd1 and its interactors
Introducing the Dryland Futures Academy: Strengthening capacities for food security early action in East Africa
Get PDFPresented at Building the Resilience and Prosperity of Pastoralists and Dryland Communities, Nairobi, Kenya, 1-2 October 202
Dynamics of polymers embedded in nematic and active fluids
Get PDFComplex fluids—including suspensions of polymers, colloids, and liquid crystals—
exhibit fascinating rheological properties that vary with time, stress, and
temperature. Their inherent versatility enables a broad spectrum of applications
in both biology (e.g., lubrication, protection and digestion via mucus and saliva)
and manufacturing (e.g., shear-thinning behaviour in extrusion-based additive
manufacturing and injectable hydrogels for controlled drug delivery). Extensive
research has provided a detailed understanding of these materials, paving the
way for the development of composite or hypercomplex systems that combine
multiple complex fluids to yield emergent properties not present in the individual
components.
This thesis investigates hypercomplex polymeric materials, focusing on systems
in which polymers are embedded in rheologically complex or active backgrounds.
Simulating such systems requires a versatile computational framework capable of
capturing thermal fluctuations, hydrodynamic interactions, and spatiotemporally
varying active forces—features that become critical on mesoscopic length scales
and energy scales comparable to thermal energy. To this end, a hybrid coarsegrained
simulation approach is employed: the background fluid is modelled via
multi-particle collision dynamics, while the polymer dynamics are resolved using
molecular dynamics. This framework enables the exploration of passive polymeric
suspensions in hypercomplex environments.
The first part of this work examines polymers embedded in nematic liquid
crystalline media. Despite extensive studies on both liquid crystals and polymers
individually, the behaviour of a single polymer in a nematic background remains
largely uncharted. Here, we explore the coupling between the polymer backbone
and the orientational order of a passive nematic fluid. We show that the polymer
adopts conformations featuring hairpins—sudden kinks along the backbone—that
allow it to conform to the nematic symmetry while maintaining a diverse range of
configurations. These hairpins are responsible for inducing anisotropic diffusivity
in the polymer.
The second part addresses systems in which passive polymers are immersed
in an active nematic fluid, with activity introduced via locally injected energy
through force dipoles. In this scenario, active, self-organised coherent flows advect
the polymer, resulting in a thousand-fold increase in diffusivity compared to
equilibrium conditions. This dramatic enhancement is governed by the interplay
of key dimensionless numbers—the Peclet number and the Weissenberg number,
which are intrinsically linked through the Ericksen number that characterises the
ratio of fundamental length scales in the system.
The third part investigates how flexible polymers respond to active nematic flows
and uncovers a length-dependent transition in their conformations. Depending on
the balance between polymer size and the emergent flow scale, chains either compress
or stretch: short polymers collapse due to asymmetric, transient interactions
with motile defects, while long polymers align and elongate along coherent flow
structures. This behaviour reflects a general principle—conformational control
through competition between intrinsic polymer dimensions and the structural
length scale of the active medium—offering a unified framework for interpreting
polymer conformational dynamics in diverse active environments.
In summary, this work demonstrates how hypercomplex environments—formed
by embedding polymers in structured or active fluids—can fundamentally reshape
polymer dynamics and conformations. By tuning parameters, such as the
coupling to the nematic orientation, active length scale or polymer length, it
becomes possible to drive transitions between compact and extended states, or to
control transport. This perspective provides a foundation for the rational design
of responsive soft materials and offers a unifying framework for understanding the
interplay between structure and dynamics in non-equilibrium polymeric systems.
In doing so, it opens new directions for exploring self-organisation and functional
behaviour in active and biologically relevant environments
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