Dr. M. Julie Thornton has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of East Anglia and a Ph.D. from the University of Bradford. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on the study of androgen action in cultured dermal papilla cells derived from human hair follicles. She is currently a Faculty Member of the Centre for Skin Sciences and a Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences in the School of Chemistry and Biosciences at the University of Bradford in the UK. Her research is based on developing relevant human skin and hair follicle ex vivo models to study ageing, inflammation, and wound healing. She has a particular interest in regulation of skin by sex steroids, particularly oestrogen and post-menopausal skin ageing. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students, and has a number of Ph.D. students working under her supervision. She is an editorial board member for the cell biology section of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group) and a member of the European Hair Research Society.