Rate My Professor Sara de la Harpe

Sara de la Harpe is an Instrument and Development Technician in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Otago, where she utilizes her Bachelor of Science with Honours in Chemistry to support diverse research initiatives. Her research interests encompass pharmacology, organic chemistry, and medicinal chemistry, fields in which she provides essential technical expertise in instrumentation and development.

De la Harpe has contributed to numerous scholarly outputs, including conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. Notable presentations include the verbal delivery of "Allosteric modulators for the cannabinoid receptor 2" at the School of Pharmacy Research Symposium in Dunedin, New Zealand, in November 2024, and the poster "The regulation of mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cell activation by bacteria" at the Webster Centre for Infectious Diseases Satellite Meeting in Queenstown, New Zealand, in August 2022. Key journal articles co-authored by her are "Developing the Cannabinoid Receptor 2 (CB2) pharmacopoeia: Past, present, and future" by Whiting, Z. M., Yin, J., de la Harpe, S. M., Vernall, A. J., & Grimsey, N. L. (2022) in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences; "Open synthesis network research in an undergraduate laboratory: Development of benzoxazole amide derivatives against Leishmania parasite" by Faville, S. C. et al. (2022) in Journal of Chemical Education; and "Human liver-derived MAIT cells differ from blood MAIT cells in their metabolism and response to TCR-independent activation" by Lamichhane, R. et al. (2021) in European Journal of Immunology.

Her ResearchGate profile further documents contributions such as "Neutrophils suppress mucosal-associated invariant T cells in humans" (2020), "Type I interferons are important co-stimulatory signals during T cell receptor mediated human MAIT cell activation" (November 2019), "TCR- or Cytokine-Activated CD8+ Mucosal-Associated Invariant T Cells Are Rapid Polyfunctional Effectors That Can Coordinate Immune Responses" (September 2019), and "Cannabinoid Receptor 2 Signalling Bias Elicited by 2,4,6-Trisubstituted 1,3,5-Triazines" (November 2018). These efforts total 378 citations, reflecting her impact in advancing research on immune responses, infectious diseases, and cannabinoid receptor pharmacology.