CoL Centre 2023 Students

I am a PhD student co-supervised by Alberto Elosegui-Artola and Victoria Sanz-Moreno. My research project aims to investigate the influence of mechanical properties (viscoelasticity) and extracellular matrix (ECM) topology on the behaviour of immune cells, particularly cytotoxic T cells and cancer cells, using mechanically tuneable hydrogels. The goal of my project is to delineate the conditions that favour immune infiltration while minimizing cancer invasion, and to determine the mechano-transducing molecules regulated by ECM viscoelasticity.

Before starting my PhD, I worked as a scientist in a biotech company where I supported drug development efforts by performing high-throughput drug screening experiments. I obtained a BSc degree in Pharmacology at the University of Hertfordshire, where I spent a year at the Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands investigating immune profiling in Renal Cell Carcinoma. Subsequently, I obtained an MSc (Res) in Translational Oncology at the University of Sheffield, where I spent six months on a research project investigating immunomodulation of pancreatic cancer by adrenomedullin receptor 2-mediated adrenomedullin signalling.

I am a PhD student working under the supervision of Nnenna Kanu (UCL) and Yin Wu (KCL). My project is focused on researching gamma delta T cells, an innate-like T cell subset, and their role in anti-cancer immunity. I am especially interested in understanding their phenotype in tumours and across metastatic sites, whether they get exhausted, their epigenetic profile, and how they respond to checkpoint blockade therapy.

Prior to my PhD I completed my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Oxford. I then worked as a Research Scientist for two years, first at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and then at the Crick. At Takeda, in their Cell Therapies group, I worked on optimising the isolation and expansion of gamma delta T cells from human blood and skin. At the Crick I worked in the Hayday Lab designing and testing a novel gamma delta TCR-CAR hybrid molecule.

I am a PhD student in the group of Graeme Stasiuk at KCL and co-supervised by Kerstin Sander and Sandy MacRobert at UCL. My project focuses on the treatment of high-grade gliomas via theranostics, or molecules containing both an imaging and a therapeutic component, as well as a targeting agent to best visualise and attack the tumour. This should enable a more personalised approach and a more accurate planning of the surgery and treatment for these extremely aggressive brain cancers.

I obtained my MSci in Chemistry from UCL in 2022, specialising in Biological Chemistry. In the third year of the degree, I had the opportunity to spend a year at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin where I worked on site-specific dual modification of proteins. Returning to UCL to finish the degree, I wrote a thesis focusing on the development of light-activated antibody-DNA conjugates. I am very much looking forward to using the expertise I gained in bioconjugation and targeting to the new challenges brought by my PhD project, and extend it with skills in radiochemistry, photochemistry, cell biology and many other fascinating areas.

I am a CRUK CoL Centre PhD student, supervised by Nicholas McGranahan in the Cancer Genome Evolution Research Group at the UCL Cancer Institute. My research project aims to explore the importance of heritable and non-heritable non-genetic diversity as cancers develop and respond to anti-tumour immunity and therapy, aiming to uncover new evolutionary vulnerabilities in cancer which may be therapeutically exploited.

I have a BSc in Biomedical Science from the University of Sheffield and an MSc in Cancer Biology from UCL. Before undertaking this PhD project, I spent three years as a research assistant as well as a more technical role developing computational pipelines in the McGranahan’s group. During this period, I contributed to various projects, including pairing genomic and transcriptomic data to improve our understanding of the functional variation driving cancer across multiple tumour types.

I am an MBPhD student working at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health under Sara Ghorashian. My project focuses on developing and optimising CAR-natural killer cells for the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia.

Before starting my PhD, I was studying medicine at UCL and completed my intercalated BSc in Immunology, Infection and Cell Pathology

I am a clinical research fellow supervised by James Arnold (KCL) and John Anderson (UCL). My PhD research focuses on developing strategies to increase the efficacy and persistence of hypoxia-sensing CAR-T cells in the tumour microenvironment, with the ultimate aim of developing a therapy suitable for translation to the clinic.

I completed my medical training at the University of Cambridge. Prior to going out of programme for my PhD, I worked as a medical oncology specialty registrar at the Royal Marsden.