Co-supervisors: Dr Sudip Paul and Prof Peter Meikle
Lipids are fundamental components of all cells, serving not only as structural elements of biological membranes but also as key regulators of cellular signalling, metabolism, energy homeostasis, and immune function. The lipid composition of tissues undergoes substantial remodelling throughout life as organs develop, mature, and age. Understanding these changes is essential for uncovering the molecular mechanisms that underpin healthy development, immune maturation, and age-related functional decline.
Recent advances in mass spectrometry have enabled comprehensive lipidomic profiling, revealing that individual tissues possess unique lipid signatures that reflect their specialised biological functions. However, despite the growing recognition of lipids as critical regulators of physiology, our understanding of how tissue lipidomes change throughout postnatal development and ageing remains incomplete. In particular, the developmental trajectories of ether lipids, including plasmalogens, remain poorly characterised despite their emerging roles in membrane organisation, antioxidant defence, cellular signalling, and immune cell biology.
Innovative approaches
At the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, we are using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based lipidomics to generate a comprehensive atlas of tissue lipid composition across postnatal development and ageing. This project will profile multiple tissues collected from mice throughout the lifespan to define age-dependent changes in lipid metabolism, identify tissue-specific lipid signatures, and uncover lipid pathways associated with postnatal development, tissue maturation, immune function, and healthy ageing. Particular emphasis will be placed on ether lipids and plasmalogens, while integrating lipidomic findings with changes in immune cell composition to better understand how lipid metabolism contributes to immune system development and age-associated immune decline.
Research objectives
- Define the tissue lipidome across postnatal development and ageing
- Perform comprehensive lipidomic profiling of multiple tissues collected throughout the lifespan.
- Characterise age-dependent changes in major lipid classes.
- Identify tissue-specific lipid signatures associated with development and healthy ageing.
- Characterise tissue-specific lipid remodelling
- Determine how lipid metabolism is remodelled across different tissues during postnatal development and ageing.
- Investigate age-dependent changes in ether lipids and plasmalogens.
- Identify lipid pathways associated with tissue maturation, immune function, and healthy ageing.
- Discover lipid biomarkers and metabolic pathways of healthy ageing
- Identify lipid signatures associated with healthy ageing across tissues.
- Integrate lipidomic data with physiological and immune phenotypes.
- Generate hypotheses for future mechanistic studies of ageing and disease.
Your role and opportunities
You will contribute to a multidisciplinary research program investigating how lipid metabolism changes throughout life. During this project, you will:
- Process tissue samples for mass spectrometry-based lipidomics.
- Learn advanced lipid extraction, LC-MS/MS, and data analysis techniques.
- Analyse large-scale lipidomic datasets using bioinformatics and statistical approaches.
- Integrate lipidomic data with immune phenotyping and biological metadata.
- Contribute to scientific publications and present findings at laboratory meetings and scientific conferences.