Directory of Experts
Details for Dr Monica Berry
| Personal details | |||||||
| Name | Dr Monica Berry | ||||||
| Job title | Visiting Lecturer |
||||||
| Department | School of Physics University of Bristol |
||||||
| Personal web page | http://www.bris.ac.uk/nsqi-centre/research/berry.html | ||||||
| Contact details | This expert can be contacted via the University of Bristol Public Relations
Office. To help us deal with your request, please mention the Directory of Experts when contacting the Public Relations Office. work+44 (0)117 331 8092 email: public-relations@bristol.ac.uk |
||||||
| Qualifications | M.Sc.(Tel-Aviv), Ph.D.(Bristol) | ||||||
| Professional details | |||||||
| Membership of professional bodies | Biochemical Society Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society |
||||||
| Keywords | mucins ocular surface tears in vitro toxicology |
||||||
| Areas of expertise | I am fascinated by the complex interactions that occur in the tears and at the ocular surface. The preocular fluid is organised by long, sugar-rich polymers, called mucins, whose physiology and biophysics I am investigating. Which are the structural characteristics that underpin the many postulated mucin roles at the ocular surface? How do disease-induced changes in, say, polymer length and in the number and nature of sugar chains that decorate it, how do these changes affect the quality of the preocular fluid? How do they affect interactions with bacteria? These are a few of the questions to which we are finding answers. Another main research interest is developing in vitro toxicology tests that are mechanistically linked to ocular surface physiology. Towards assessing the effects of mild and moderate toxicants we have evolved a 3D construct that comprises a stratified epithelium and a stromal-cells populated collagen gel. |
||||||
| Languages (other than English) |
|
||||||