About
A’qilah Banu binte Abdul Majeed Clarke completed her Undergraduate degree at the National University of Singapore in Biomedical Science. She then pursued her honours year at A-Star IMCB (Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology) under the supervision of Prof Xiao Zhi Cheng in Alzheimer’s research. After this, she was awarded the Australia International Research Scholarship in which she did her Master of Philosophy (Medical Biochemistry) at the University of Newcastle on CaMKII work under the supervision of Prof John Rostas and Associate Professor Kathryn Skelding.
After this, she returned to Singapore to join Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at Cancer Science Institute to pursue a Master of Science in Haematology under the supervision of Prof Toshio Suda.
A’qilah Banu joined the UTS Centenary Centre for Inflammation to conduct a PhD project under the supervision of Prof Phil Hansbro, Dr. Ashleigh Philp, Dr. Sobia Idrees, Dr Andy Philp, Dr. Gang Liu and Dr. Kamal Dua.
Currently, the therapies used for IPF have intolerable side effects which cause patients to stop treatment hence an alternative goal standard is being pursued.
A’qilah Banu’s research is to create a gold standard of the Bleomycin model to re capsulate the progression of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). She would then use single cell sequencing to identify populations and biomarkers in the disease model and progression to have a greater understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease.
Aqilah Banu would use various mitochondrial therapeutics in the hope of reducing the rate of IPF progression. This is to improve mitochondrial quality and subsequently reduce susceptibility to a pro-fibrotic phenotype.