Dr Muireann Coen

I am funded by the MRC Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP) scheme as a career development fellow (as of January 2009). The objectives of my fellowship work are to apply advanced metabonomic technologies (both NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry based approaches) to the study of adverse drug reactions in animal models and the clinical setting. I plan to focus on two drug therapies which are associated with wide variation in efficacy and toxicity as models for this work.

I am also involved with the COnsortium on MEtabonomic Toxicology project, which consists of a large collaborative effort between pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, BMS, Servier, Sanofi-Aventis and Waters) and Imperial College London. The consortium focuses on providing a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of xenobiotic toxicity in animal models with particular emphasis being placed on renal papillary necrosis and idiosyncratic liver toxicity. The COMET 2 project is now well underway and involves integration of data from several advanced analytical technologies such as UPLC-MS, solution state cryoprobe NMR, and magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR.

Other research interests I have developed include the potential of NMR-based metabonomics as a diagnostic tool for monitoring infection and response to treatment. This interest stemmed from a period of research work I carried out in the Dept of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney (funded by a Royal Society fellowship). I am also interested in using NMR to differentiate metabolic profiles of clinically-relevant bacterial and fungal species and to detect efficacy of drugs against such isolates.