JRF Research Showcase

Junior Research Fellows (JRFs) are an important part of Kellogg College’s academic community. Together, they represent an impressive breadth of disciplinary expertise and research interests, from the sciences and social sciences to the humanities and beyond.

Presenters will share not only what they do, but why it matters. They’ll be telling us about the intellectual journey behind their research: the questions that drive them, the methods they use, and the insights their work offers. The aim is to inspire curiosity, invite constructive feedback, and build bridges across disciplines.

Join us to be part of a rich and fascinating journey of multidisciplinary discovery with our JRFs. Each presentation will be no more than 10 minutes, with opportunities for questions with the researchers. The event will be followed by a drinks reception for networking and further conversations.

Presenters

Elisabeth Mira Rothweiler, Nuffield Department of Medicine

Molecular Trojan Horses for Drug Delivery to the Brain<

The blood-brain barrier protects the brain but blocks over 98% of therapeutic molecules from entry – a critical challenge in treating Alzheimer’s Disease. Mira is engineering synthetic nanobodies, small antibody fragments that function as ‘molecular Trojan horses’ to transport drugs across this barrier.

Using ribosome- and phage-display screening technologies, she identifies synthetic nanobodies that exploit the brain’s endogenous receptor-mediated transport pathways. These sybody shuttles can be conjugated to therapeutic cargo and release it into the brain. Through systematic screening combined with biophysical characterization and cellular models, she is developing a platform of brain-penetrant delivery vehicles that could transform treatment options for neurodegenerative diseases.

Raffaele Sarnataro, Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College; Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

Why do we need to sleep?

We, like all animals with a nervous system, spend a substantial portion of our lives asleep. While sleeping, we are unable to feed, mate, or escape predators, yet evolution has still propelled sleep across the tree of life. Therefore, there must be a strong biological reason for why we need to sleep, one that remains unresolved. The explanation may lie in the way brains are built and how they consume energy.

Travelling through World War I and pandemics, Raffaele will discuss how regions of the brain controlling sleep were first discovered, and how modern neuroscience has studied them to uncover the fundamental functions of sleep. Since all animals sleep, he will underscore the importance of cross-species research and the use of simple animal models. He will argue, based on his research and on the sleep patterns of mammals, that energy consumption in the brain and sleep are intimately linked, and that sleep may have developed as an inescapable consequence of the fact that we breathe oxygen.