Kumari Ubhayasekera

Education

BSc (Honors) in Chemistry, 1996, Department of Chemistry, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka

MSc in Chemistry, 2004, Department of Food Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

PhD in Food Science with specialization in Food Chemistry, 2009, Department of Food Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (Thesis: http://diss-epsilon.slu.se:8080/archive/00002066/)

Expertise

Lipid analysis (cholesterol, phytosterols, oxycholesterols, oxyphytosterols and other lipids) .

Currently I work in the research group of Prof. Jonas Bergquist

1. Mainly with lipidomics and metabolomics based research

2. EU project titled “Beta-cell function in juvenile diabetes and obesity (Beta JUDO)”.

We work on the lipidomics research of the multi disciplinary Beta-JUDO Project. The aim of this EU project (FP7-HEALTH.2011.2.4.3-2) is to develop innovative therapeutic strategies through the increase of pharmacology-based alternatives targeting insulin hypersecretion for the treatment of young obese individuals.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Peter Bergsten from the Department of Medical Cell Biology http://www.mcb.uu.se, in collaboration with partners in Austria, Germany, Luxemburg, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland. Visit (http://betajudo.org/) for more information.

3. Determination of Imatinib concentration in plasma from cancer patients and extraction recoveries of Imatinib from human cells.

Imatinib, commercially available as Gleevec, Glivec, STI571, is an anti-cancer drug that selectively blocks c-kit and BCR/ABL tyrosine kinases. Imatinib is taken orally and its concentration in blood has to be within a certain range (500 – 1000 ng/ml for CML patients) in order to get a clinical response. Imatinib concentration in cancer patients treated within the recommended dosage varies depending on several factors: rate of drug metabolism, body weight, sex, etc. Evidently, monitoring Imatinib concentration in plasma would assist in adjusting dosage for individual patient and avoiding possible side effects associated with it. We have developed a quantification method using LC-MS/MS.

4.Steroids and oxidation products