Vanessa Lowe

My love for biology after sneaking into my big brother’s room, mostly to be a nuisance, but in my mischief came across a series of children’s books in his room called ‘ how my body works’. I read the entire 56 book series and became obsessed with all the amazing things happening in our bodies. Fast-forward 10ish years, I went on to study Cell Biology at the University of Manchester, whilst there, I went for a year in industry/experience in University of Nevada, Reno to work on digestive system motility. I went on to do a PhD at University College London, funded by the British Heart Foundation. My thesis was focused on understanding mechanisms of zebrafish heart regeneration, I did this with Prof. Ian Zachary and Dr. Caroline Pellet-Many. If you’d like a brief intro to what I did there, here’s a youtube video of my 3 Minute-Thesis challenge. I am now doing my PostDoc at Queen Mary University looking at roles of a molecule called CNP following a heart attack. When I’m not in the lab running experiments, I’m an avid cyclist and go on long rides and bikepacking adventures with friends.