Isaac Walton

Supervised by Prof. Andrew Wilkie, Prof. Stephen Twigg, and Prof. Tonia Vincent, my work focuses on craniosynostosis, the premature fusion of one or more sutures separating the bones of the skull vault.  A network of developmental mechanisms is involved in patterning and maintaining this complex system of bones, and a variety of genetic mutations can affect these processes to cause serious skull malformations.  Oxford is a leading national referral centre in the surgical treatment of these cranial malformations, enabling us to study the entire process by which these arise from patient to mutation, and from mouse models to molecular pathogenesis.

I welcome any enquiries about my work.

Additionally, I am a Science Content Contributor at the Royal Institution of Great Britain and welcome any queries or suggestions from individuals/academics about what the public should be informed about next with regard to science.

Previous Work

As an undergraduate at Newcastle University, I undertook research into Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome, an aberration in the neuromuscular junction, under the supervision of Dr. Ana Topf.  Following this, I moved to the University of Cambridge for my MPhil and subsequent work as a Research Assistant under the supervision of Prof. Julie Ahringer; here, I investigated the role of promoter elements in the formation and maintenance of chromatin domains in C. elegans.