Today we highlight AVM researcher Fanis Michailides whose research is funded by The Butterfly AVM Charity.
“Earlier work carried out by Prof. Veronica Kinsler’s lab, identified three faulty genes responsible for causing one third of AVM cases. During the first year of this PhD project we are designing methods to generate these faults in healthy blood vessel cells, with the aim of generating ‘smart-cells’ that mimic AVMs in test tubes. This is proceeding very well, and this will give us very useful tools for testing out drugs on the cells in test tubes. In parallel we continue to investigate additional causes for AVM in the other two-thirds of patients. Any patients having surgery at GOSH should let our team know so that we can be there to collect samples for research if they wish.”
Fanis Michailides