Meet the team:
Dr Leanne Stokes
Leanne is a Lecturer in pharmacology at the University of East Anglia (UK) (profile www.uea.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/profile/l-stokes) and leads the StokesLab research program.
Leanne completed her PhD in 2004 and began working on P2X7 receptors with Annmarie Surprenant (Sheffield). Following a second postdoc with James Wiley (Sydney) she took a Vice Chancellors research fellowship at RMIT University (Melbourne). Her main research interests are the role of ion channels in controlling immune cell behaviour. ​
Dr Stefan Bidula
Stefan is a BBSRC-funded postdoc in the lab working on deciphering how ginsenosides interact with P2X7 receptors and how this could be useful in a therapeutic context.
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Lucka Bibic
Lucka is a BBSRC-funded PhD student working on drug discovery for P2X receptors using animal venoms. A science communicator at heart, Lucka writes for JACS Spotlights and develops VR games for public engagement.
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Lizzie Allum
Lizzie is a pharmacist and recently began her BBSRC-funded PhD training programme working on developing novel positive allosteric modulators for P2X receptors. ​
Dr Kshitija Dhuna
Kshitija completed her PhD at RMIT University (Melbourne) 2014-2019 working on P2X7 receptors and development of novel pharmacological tools.
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Emin Karayel
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Emin is a pharmacy student from Germany who spent 6 months in the Stokes Lab working on purinergic receptors in microglia.
Past members:
Our publications
1. Bidula S, Cromer BA, Walpole S, Angulo J, Stokes L. Mapping a novel positive allosteric modulator binding site in the central vestibule region of human P2X7 Scientific Reports 9:3231
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2. Dhuna K, Felgate M, Bidula SM, Walpole S, Bibic L, Cromer BA, Angulo J, Sanderson J, Stebbing MJ, Stokes L. Ginsenosides act as positive modulators of P2X4 receptors. Molecular Pharmacology 95:210-221.
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3. Bibic L, Druskis J, Walpole S, Angulo J, Stokes L. Bug Off Pain: an educational virtual reality game on spider venom and chronic pain for public engagement. Journal Chemical Education 2019. Doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00905
4. Stokes L, Layhadi JA, Bibic L, Dhuna K, Fountain SJ. P2X4 receptor function in the central nervous system and current breakthroughs in pharmacology. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2017 May 23;8:291. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00291
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5. Bartlett R, Stokes L, Curtis SJ, Curtis BL, Sluyter R. Probenecid directly impairs activation of the canine P2X7 receptor. Nucleosides Nucleotides Nucleic Acids 2017. 36(12):736-744.
6. Gilbert DF, Stebbing MJ, Kuenzel K, Murphy RM, Zacharewicz E, Buttgereit A, Stokes L, Adams DJ, Friedrich O. Store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) and purinergic receptor-mediated calcium homeostasis in murine BV-2 microglia cells: early cellular response to ATP mediated microglia activation. Frontiers Mol Neuroscience 2016 9:111
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7. Helliwell RM, ShioukHuey CO, Dhuna K, Molero JC, Ye JM, Xue CC, Stokes L. Selected ginsenosides of the protopanaxadiol series are novel positive allosteric modulators of P2X7 receptors. British Journal of Pharmacology 2015 Jul;172(13):3326-40.
doi: 10.1111/bph.13123. Epub 2015 Apr 24.
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8. Dao-Ung P, Skarratt KK, Fuller SJ, Stokes L. Paroxetine suppresses recombinant human P2X7 responses. Purinergic Signalling 2015 Dec;11(4):481-90. doi: 10.1007/s11302-015-9467-2. Epub 2015 Sep 5.
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9. Stokes L, Spencer SJ, Jenkins TA. Understanding the role of P2X7 in affective disorders – are glial cells the major players? Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2015 doi: 10.3389/fncel.2015.00258.
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10. Bartlett R, Stokes L, Sluyter R. The P2X7 purinergic receptor: recent developments and the use of P2X7 antagonists in models of disease. Pharmacological Reviews. 2014 66(3):638-75. doi: 10.1124/pr.113.008003.
Links to other publications from Leanne Stokes can be found using the Google scholar link below
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