Moments before thesis submission...

Congratulations Dr Ntombizodwa Makuyana!

Congratulations Dr Ntombizodwa Makuyana! Our 24th PhD completion from the lab, and our 1st Cambridge PhD defence! Way to go Tombi! 

Congratulations Stevi Piliou!

Congratulations to Stevi for winning the Lucy Cavendish College student writing prize for her research essay "Autoimmunity and neurological diseases – Creating a hope for the future"!

International Day of Women in Science

Congratulations Dr Julika Neumann!

Congratulations to the amazing Dr Julika Neumann, who just graduated from the lab, as our final Belgian PhD!

Julika secretly did two PhDs rather than one, with an outstanding clinical immunology PhD where she discovered a new immunodeficiency (and won the Golden Pipette!) and another systems immunology project on SARS-CoV2, with the first paper published and several systems vaccinology papers coming out soon!

Julika was a talented immunologist and bioinformatician, but above all an exceptional team-player and detail-orientated fixer. We all congratulate Julika on an exceptional PhD and her positive impact on all of those around her over the past four years. All the best Julika!

Golden Pipette awarded to Amy Dashwood

Congratulations go to Amy Dashwood, winner of the 2023 Golden Pipette! The Golden Pipette is handed down from winner to winner in recognition of elegant experiments and a positive contribution to lab culture. This year Amy has won the Golden Pipette for her elegant experiments creating a genetic chimera system to analyse microglia homeostasis, and for being an outstanding lab citizen and mentor to undergraduate students. Well done Amy!

Congratulations Amy Dashwood!

Best Student Talk at the Babraham Institute Lab Talks. Well deserved!

Stay tuned to find out her really cool work on microglia homeostasis!

Happy International Women's Day

From Magda Ali, Ntombizodwa Makuyana and Amy Dashwood, PhD students in our lab.

Congratulations to Dr Ana Acosta!

Well done to Dr Ana Acosta, who successfully defended her PhD today! Ana tackled a challenging and exciting project on the role of HNF1A in monogenic diabetes, generating a new mouse model and validating results in primary human islets. Her work dramatically alters the way we see HNF1A in glucose homeostasis and diabetes. A very productive PhD, performed at University of Lille, with Prof Caroline Bonner, and the University of Leuven, with my team. The 20th PhD student to graduate from my lab, and one of the last from our Leuven days! Great job Dr Acosta!

2021 Golden Pipette

The Golden Pipette has a long and illustrious record. Awarded at every lab retreat in recognition of a single very cool result, the Golden Pipette has been handed down through generations of talented scientists. This year the Golden Pipette was awarded to.... Ntombizodwa Makuyana, for her exciting new approach to creating an anti-inflammatory environment in the lung. Well done Tombi, for a stunning first year PhD result!