Biography
Kia received her MSci degree in Chemistry from King’s College London. Before her university studies, she gained laboratory experience in medicinal chemistry under Prof Jari Yli-Kauhaluoma and Dr Paula Kiuru’s supervision at the University of Helsinki. At King’s College London, she synthesised metabolites found in the marine organosulfur cycle under Dr James Harvey’s supervision during her King’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship. After her third year, Kia did an internship in Prof Seppo Vainio’s lab at the University of Oulu, where she worked on improving methods for isolation of extracellular vesicles from natural sources, and evaluating their therapeutic potential. For her Master’s project, she investigated the role of CD20 and its palmitoylation in human B cell activation in Dr Katelyn Spillane’s group. After graduating from King’s, Kia worked under Dr Afaf El-Sagheer’s supervision at the University of Southampton, where she synthesised modified nucleosides. Later on, she joined ATDBio (part of Biotage) in oligonucleotide production.
In Booth’s lab at UCL, she will be developing magnetically-activated nucleic acid technologies. In her free time, Kia enjoys playing tennis competitively and exploring London with her friends.
Research Interests
Therapeutic and remotely-controlled nucleic acids, Nucleic acid delivery
Booth Research Group 