Summer lab-based traineeship supervisors in Life Sciences

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The following supervisors are offering places to summer students of the Vacation Scholarship Programme.

Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery

Name	Research interests
Professor Alessio Ciulli	Chemical and Structural Biology of Targeted Protein Degradation
Professor Sir Michael Ferguson	Professor Sir Michael is an expert on the biochemistry of protozoan parasites, the molecular details of infection in general and on drug discovery for infectious and non-infectious diseases. He serves on the boards of the Medicines for Malaria Venture and UK Biobank and previously of the Wellcome Trust.
Professor David Gray	Molecular Pharmacology and Compound Screening
Professor Kevin Read	Drug discovery, lead optimisation and preclinical development
Professor David Horn	Professor Horn’s research focusses on Neglected Tropical Diseases, caused by trypanosomes. Areas of expertise include drug resistance, drug development, gene expression control, immune evasion, molecular genetics, and high-throughput genetic screens.
Professor Ian Gilbert	Design and synthesis of potential therapeutic agents
Professor Mark Field	Professor Field’s work principally exploits the parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma brucei and efforts to leverage genomics and proteomics resources to provide insight into virulence mechanisms and basic cell biology, with specific interests in protein transport systems and nuclear organisation. He has interests in bioinformatics, graphic design, functional genomics and eukaryotic evolutionary biology.
Dr Mattie Pawlowic	Cryptosporidium, molecular parasitology, drug discovery
Dr Susan Wyllie	Kinetoplastid Biology
Dr William Farnaby	The Farnaby group is interested in using induced proximity chemistry to understand and treat diseases of the central nervous system.
Dr Beatriz Baragana	The Baragaña lab (DDU apicomplexan portfolio) is focused on delivering effective and safe treatments for malaria, cryptosporidiosis and schistosomiasis exploiting novel biological pathways.
Professor Mike Bodkin
Dr Chiara Maniaci
Dr Manu De Rycker	Drug discovery for infectious diseases, development of cell-based screening cascades and understanding of persisters in infectious diseases

Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology

Name	Research interests
Professor Kim Dale	Establishing the vertebrate embryonic body plan
Dr Jens Januschke	Dynamics of cell polarisation
Professor Carol MacKintosh	Diabetes and cancer as disorders of 'signal multiplexing' in the vertebrate animals
Dr Leeanne McGurk	How does RNA biogenesis control motor neuron disease?
Dr David Murray	Understanding the basic molecular mechanics in the formation of sub-cellular structures
Professor Inke Nathke	From molecules to tissue architecture
Professor Kees Weijer	Cell-cell signalling and chemotactic cell movement during development
Professor Angus Lamond	Nuclear structure proteomics and gene expression
Dr Constance Alabert	DNA replication in the context of chromatin – Implications for human diseases
Professor Ronald Hay	Role of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins in transcriptional regulation
Professor Tom Owen-Hughes	Chromatin structure and gene regulation
Dr Fede Pelisch	Mechanisms of Meiotic Chromosome Segregation and its Regulation by Post-Translational Modifications
Dr Kasper Rasmussen	Investigating the regulation and function of DNA methylation in hematopoiesis
Professor Jason Swedlow	Mitotic chromosome dynamics
Professor Tomoyuki Tanaka	Mechanisms ensuring proper chromosome segregation in mitosis
Dr Tony Ly	Proliferation control in health and disease
Professor Julian Blow	How DNA replication is organised and controlled to ensure precise chromosome duplication
Dr Liz Miller	Protein quality control and secretion

Division of Cell Signalling and Immunology

Name	Research interests
Professor Simon Arthur	Signaling networks that control inflammation
Dr Henry McSorley	Immunological interactions with helminth parasites
Professor Doreen Cantrell	T-lymphocyte signal transduction
Professor Hari Hundal	Hormonal, nutrient and stress-mediated modulation of fuel and energy metabolism

Division of Computational Biology

Name	Research interests
Professor Geoffrey Barton	Protein and nucleic acid sequence analysis and function prediction
Professor Rastko Sknepnek	Computational soft condensed matter and biophysics
Dr Gabriele Schweikert
Professor Ulrich Zachariae	Computational Biophysics and Drug Discovery

MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit

Name	Research interests
Professor Dario Alessi	Professor Alessi is a biochemical engineer whose research focuses on opening up our understanding of human health and disease. Much of his current work focuses on understanding a gene involved in Parkinson’s called LRRK2 and aims to exploit findings on this to develop improved ways to better diagnose and treat the disease.
Dr Paul Davies
Dr Greg Findlay	Embryonic Stem Cell Signaling Modules
Professor Miratul Muqit	Elucidation of the PINK1 signaling pathway in Parkinson’s disease
Dr Esther Sammler	Parkinson’s disease
Professor Gopal Sapkota	Untangling the TGFβ and Wnt signalling networks in cells, development and human diseases
Dr Amos Liang
Professor Ian Ganley	Molecular analysis of autophagy
Professor John Rouse	Control of chromosome stability and DNA repair in health and disease
Professor Karim Labib	Chromosome replication and genome integrity
Dr Kirby Swatek	Ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins in the immune system
Professor Sir Philip Cohen	Signaling Networks in the Innate Immune System
Professor Satpal Virdee	Chemical Biology Approaches for Studying The Ubiquitin System
Professor Yogesh Kulathu	Signal transduction mediated by the posttranslational modification of proteins in the maintenance of protein and cellular homeostasis
Dr Mahima Swamy	Immune interactions at the intestinal epithelium
Dr Adrien Rousseau	Signalling pathways controlling proteasome homeostasis

Division of Molecular Microbiology

Name	Research interests
Professor Nicola Stanley-Wall	Understanding the molecular mechanism of biofilm formation
Dr Helge Dorfmueller	Investigation of streptococcal cell wall biogenesis and glycoconjugate vaccine development
Dr Megan Bergkessel	Regulatory mechanisms operating during bacterial growth arrest and persistence
Professor Sarah Coulthurst	Microbial competition and bacterial protein secretion systems
Dr Daniel Neill	Host-pathogen interactions and bacterial adaptations to the respiratory tract environment
Dr Varsha Singh	Understanding olfaction in development and disease, olfactory GPCRs in C. elegans and swarming in bacteria

Division of Plant Sciences

Name	Research interests
Dr Jorunn Bos
Dr Davide Bulgarelli	Structure, function and host control of the plant microbiota
Professor Claire Halpin
Dr Piers Hemsley	Regulation of protein function in plants by S-acylation
Dr Edgar Huitema	Mechanisms of virulence acquisition during Phytophthora-host associations
Dr Sarah McKim	Developmental biology of plant architecture
Professor Gordon Simpson	RNA and Development
Dr Ingo Hein	Plant Pathogen Co-evolution
Professor Paul Birch	Plant pathogen interactions
Professor Robbie Waugh	Crop Genomics
Dr Martin Balcerowicz	Dr Balcerowicz is a plant molecular biologist with a specific interest in how plants perceive and react to their environment, particularly to light and temperature signals. His areas of expertise include plant development, plant genetics, light signalling, temperature sensing and plant responses to climate change.
Dr Didier Ndeh