Students

Reham is a postgraduate researcher, currently based on beamline I14 at Diamond. Her PhD project is collaboration between the University of Leeds (School of Dentistry) and Diamond Light Source where her time during the project is split between the two institutions. Before moving to Leeds to start her PhD, she obtained an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from Queen Mary, University of London. Reham’s project is focused on using X-ray techniques, mainly diffraction and tomography, to characterise enamel remineralisation with the use of a self-assembling peptide (SAP) which, hypothetically, acts as a scaffold for hydroxyapatite nucleation. At Diamond, she will be working on the development of an in situ sample environment for use on the Dual Imaging and Diffraction (DIAD) beamline in order to study enamel remineralisation under near-physiological conditions. As part of her PhD project, the liquid cell on the hard X-ray nanoprobe beamline (I14) will be used to investigate how the SAP induces mineral formation.

Research areas: Enamel, biomineralisation/remineralisation/regeneration, X-ray tomography, X-ray diffraction, self-assembling peptides, in situ characterisation