Masouda is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine under the mentorship of Prof Alison September and Prof Malcolm Collins. Her research focuses on identifying genetic risk factors underlying acute and chronic musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries, such as anterior cruciate ligament ruptures and Achilles tendinopathy, respectively. Some of her interesting findings include the contrasting genetic risk profiles observed between acute and chronic injury phenotypes for the angiogenesis genes. Currently, she is expanding upon several of these genetic associations using a human fibroblast cell culture model to better characterise and investigate the functional significance of these associations and to aid in the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms underpinning altered injury risk.
Within RUBICON, Masouda visited the laboratory headed by Professor Karl Kadler at the University of Manchester to investigate the circadian clock regulation of musculoskeletal tissues using cell culture, RNA-seq, bioinformatics and the CRISPR/Cas9 system.
