Bristena’s research in the Clinical Neurosciences Department focuses on understanding how cellular reprogramming techniques can be applied to generate robust platforms for the interrogation of novel metabolic mechanisms of disease and therapeutic targets in progressive multiple sclerosis. She has been supervising for Neurobiology 1B at Clare since 2021 and is also a Junior Clinical Fellow for the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Before this, Bristena completed her MD at Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest, while working as a voluntary research assistant, focusing on understanding the role of chloride dynamics in regulating hypoxic damage in hypothalamic neurons in the context of perinatal asphyxia.