Dr Paula McClean

Overview

Dr Paula McClean graduated from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2004 with a First Class Honors degree in Medicinal Chemistry. In 2007 she completed a PhD at Ulster University in Diabetes and Endocrinology, focusing on the clinical utility of incretin hormone analogues for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity.

She then completed a number of postdoctoral research posts at Ulster University, initially within the Diabetes Research Group, moving to the Neuroscience Research Group in 2008 to explore the utility of incretin analogues in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently Paula is a Lecturer at the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine at Ulster University (2013-present), with active clinical and preclinical research in the area of Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an author and invited reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals and is an honorary researcher at the Western Health and Social Care Trust. Membership extends to external organisations including Diabetes UK, the Irish Endocrine Society and the Society for Neuroscience.

Research Interests

Dr McClean’s research interests span the intricate relationship between obesity, diabetes, cognitive dysfunction, Alzheimer’s disease and the inflammatory process associated with diseases of ageing.

She is actively involved in the preclinical development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Ongoing clinical studies are focused on stratification of type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease patients with respect to more accurate (and timely) diagnosis and response to therapy.

Teaching Interests

Neurological disease, Psychiatry for Stratified Medicine, Anatomy and Physiology and Clinical Governance, Regulatory process and ethics.

Administrative Roles

Module co-ordinator for BIO338 Neurological Disease (BSc Hons Stratified Medicine) and BIO125 Clinical Governance, regulatory process and ethics (BSc Hons Stratified Medicine).