Diane Lee

Research Fellow

Pathology and Infectious Diseases, School of Veterinary Medicine

University of Surrey

Email: diane.lee@surrey.ac.uk

VALIDATE Role:

Network Associate

Research Keywords: 

Respiratory, Tuberculosis, Asthma

Biography

Diane is an ex vivo and in vitro cell biologist with considerable experience in drug discovery and pre-clinical research. Her extensive technical expertise in primary and 3-D tissue culture was gained at Novartis, working in the Gastro-Intestinal Disease Area. Here she developed culture techniques of human and mouse small intestinal epithelial cells (SIECs) and colonic epithelial cells (CECs) as organoids, using them to study mechanisms of mucositis and therapeutics/prevention thereof. She completed her PhD in 2015 at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Brighton. Here she developed an in vitro model to enable pre-clinical identification of drug irritancy and permeability issues in the lung as part of ADME determination.

Currently, Diane is a Research Fellow in Infectious Diseases. Having recently published in the fields of bovine tuberculosis, bovine respiratory disease and equine asthma, she is now collaborating with SGUL on a VALIDATE project to study aerogenic TB vaccine binding and translocation in a human in vitro alveolus model. She is passionate about championing the principles of the 3Rs; Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of animals in scientific experiments.