Zarah is a KCL Wellcome PhD fellow in mental health research for healthcare professionals and is a GPhC-registered Pharmacist.
She graduated from the University of Bath after completing the MPharm, before undertaking a cross-sector pre-registration training programme with GSK and Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust. Continuing in R&D at GSK, she managed the supply and distribution of investigational medicinal products to early phase, oncology clinical trials globally.
She subsequently completed an MSc in Dementia Research at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and worked with the CannTEEN research team within the Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit on a double-blind, placebo-controlled, pharmaco-fMRI study investigating the effects of cannabis in healthy participants. Her project focused on the differences in acute effects of cannabis, with THC and different levels of CBD, on episodic memory and psychotomimetic symptoms between adolescents and adults.
Zarah is interested in the pathophysiology underlying mental health conditions in neurodegenerative diseases and drugs that may modulate these mechanisms. She will be supervised by Prof. Sandrine Thuret, Dr Anthony Vernon and Prof. Allan Young, and her PhD project will look at the impact of psilocybin on mood and cognitive function mediated by hippocampal neurogenesis and microglial activity in patients with major depressive disorder.
Thuret Lab 