Dr Despina Moissidou

Profile

I am a Senior Lecturer in Medical Sciences, and Head of Histology/Histopathology in the pre-clinical years of the medical programme. My expertise lies is histology, basic pathology, laboratory medicine and biological/forensic anthropology.

My main research interest involves both ancient and modern tissue pathology and paleopathology through laboratory and histological techniques. I have led laboratory research projects on Egyptian mummies, in collaboration with the Medical School of the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain, the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) SESAME in Jordan and the Medical School of the Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.   Other interests include the enhancement of histology curriculum in medical education, which is currently in collaboration with Barts Hospital and the NHS Learning Hub.  

Current funded research projects:

• QMUL’s virtual histology/pathology library for pathology learning at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry (Westfield Funding)
• The Identification of the structural imprint of a certain type of gliomas (i.e., astrocytomas) different between tumours, based on the conventional classification system proposed by WHO, through SR-FTIR micro spectroscopic examination (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science, SESAME grant)

I am a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science UK, Member of the European Society of Pathology and the American Association for Anatomy, and a UK trained Crime Scene Investigator (CSI).

Research

Publications

Selected publications:

- Moissidou D, Derricott H, and Kamel G.: “Mummified embalmed head skin: SR-FTIR microspectroscopic exploration”, in Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 261 (2021) 120073, Science Direct

-    Moissidou D, et al.: “Histological analysis of skin tissue from the Egyptian mummies of the Museum of    Anthropology, University of Athens, Greece. In press

-  Moissidou D., et al.: “Un posible case de ocronosis exogena. Estudio de una cabeza humana momificada, ME006”. Actas del XIII Congreso Nacional de Paleopatología. 2016 (in Spanish)

-   Moissidou D., et al.: “Invasive versus Non-Invasive Methods Applied to Mummy Research: Will This Controversy Ever Be Solved?” Special Issue in Bioarchaeology, BioMed Research International, open access, 2015.