Molecular Biology & Genetics

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acb219@cam.ac.uk @AngelaClaireW

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Plant Sciences and Darwin College

Keywords

Plants, Crops, Food Security, Environmental Stress, Genetics

My research focuses on understanding the response of maize plants to high light and cold temperature stresses.

cjb@sanger.ac.uk @carlajonesbio

Position

Senior Staff Scientist

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

T Cells, Mucosal Immunology, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, CRISPR/Cas9

I am an immunologist interested in finding out how our DNA affect our likelihood of developing certain diseases.

cs2122@cam.ac.uk

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Physiology, Development and Neuroscience Department

Keywords

Development, Gene expression, Transcription, Drosophila, Live imaging

I am a biologist trained at the University of Malaga (Spain), where I became fascinated by developmental biology or, in other words, how a whole organism is built from a single cell.

cb2160@cam.ac.uk @c_bortoluzzi2

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Genetics

Keywords

Comparative genomics, epigenetics, conservation genomics

I am a computational biologist fascinated by the evolution of conserved DNA sequences. In particular, I am intrigued by the questions: where do they come from, how do they evolve, and what is their function.

ds891@cam.ac.uk

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Cambridge Institute for Medical Research

Keywords

Membrane Traffic, Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Microscopy

I’m a research associate at the University of Cambridge and I’m passionate about membrane trafficking. In other words, I try to understand how proteins travel through the cell.

es630@medschl.cam.ac.uk @ESofianopoulou

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Medical Genetics and Public Health and Primary Care

Keywords

Epidemiology of Chronic Disease, Genetic Susceptibility, Environmental Factors

I have worked for several years in chronic noncommunicable disease epidemiology, and I am particularly interested in understanding the impact of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors on chronic disease, as well as to examine their interplay.

escameron@ebi.ac.uk

Position

ESPOD Fellow

Affiliation

EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

Phycology, Metagenomics, Bioinformatics, Symbiosis, Community ecology

I am an ecologist interested in applying modern molecular techniques to characterize ecological community structures and species interactions.

gblackwell@ebi.ac.uk @graceblackwel1

Position

ESPOD Fellow

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

Microbiology, Genomics, Mobile Genetic Elements, Plasmids, Antibiotic Resistance

I am especially interested in elements that are involved in the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes. These include transposons that are able to move within a cell and plasmids that are able to transfer between different bacterial cells.

ihardege@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk @IHardege

Position

Investigator Scientist

Affiliation

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Keywords

Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology, Pharmacology, Nematodes

I am a neuroscientist and molecular biologist who is interested in understanding the molecular machinery that allows neurons to communicate with each other.

kls78@cam.ac.uk @KadiLiisSaar

Position

Research Fellow and Schmidt Science Fellow

Affiliation

Chemistry, Physics and St John's College

Keywords

Biophysical Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Computational Biology, Molecular Machine Learning

I am a Meres Research Fellow at St John’s College and a Schmidt Science Fellow working between the Centre for Misfolding Diseases at the Department of Chemistry and the Maxwell Centre at the Department of Physics.

kab84@cam.ac.uk @thekatybrown1

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Virology Division, Department of Pathology

Keywords

Genomics, bioinformatics, virology, microbiology

I am a postdoc in the Division of Virology, Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, working with Dr Andrew Firth.

lb935@cam.ac.uk @lakshmib02

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Gurdon Institute/ Darwin College

Keywords

Mechanobiology, mechanical force, embryonic development, cell migration

I am a current Herchel Smith/ EMBO Postdoctoral fellow at the Gurdon Institute working in the team of Dr. Fegnzhu Xiong since April 2022. I am interested in understanding how mechanical forces and external environment impact early embryonic development.

laura.fachal@sanger.ac.uk @FachalLaura

Position

Senior Staff Scientist

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute and Lucy Cavendish College

Keywords

Genetic Epidemiology, Genetics, Bioinformatics

I am particularly interested in understanding how common variation in the DNA contributes to the development of common diseases.

leah@ebi.ac.uk @loolibear

Position

EBPOD Postdoctoral Fellow

Affiliation

EMBL-EBI and Medicine

Keywords

Transmission, Bacteria, Epidemiology, Antimicrobial Resistance, Bioinformatics

Bacterial infections are at risk of becoming complicated or untreatable as a result of increasing antimicrobial resistance. My research interests are focused on understanding bacterial transmission dynamics and broader epidemiological trends

ld429@medschl.cam.ac.uk @LeilaDorling

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Public Health and Primary Care

Keywords

Genetic Epidemiology, Cancer Genetics, Statistics

I am a Post-Doc in Doug Easton’s group at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology within the University of Cambridge. Our group’s focus is evaluating how genetic variation contributes to the risk of female breast cancer.

ll438@cam.ac.uk @liisaloog

Position

Research Fellow

Affiliation

Genetics

Keywords

Human Evolution, Genetics, Population Genetics, Quantitative Genetics, Human Variation

My research is focussed the evolution of complex human traits.

lorenabv@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk

Position

Postdoctoral Researcher

Affiliation

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Keywords

Immuno-oncology, Dendritic Cells, Immunity in Cancer, Cancer Microenvironment

Cancer cells can be detected and eliminated by our immune system, but this function is commonly disrupted in tumours. I am interested in understanding this disfunction and how we can help our immune system fight cancer.

cemremnv@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk @mcemremnv

Position

Postdoctoral Researcher

Affiliation

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Keywords

Structural Biology, RNA, mRNA Processing, Cryo-EM, Microscopy, Crystallography

I am a molecular and structural biologist, interested in modelling 3D structures of protein-nucleic acid complexes.

magdas@ebi.ac.uk

Position

Research Fellow

Affiliation

European Bioinformatics Institute

Keywords

biotech, cancer, embryonic development, CRISPR, mathematics

I am a mathematician and computational biologist fascinated by genomics and biotechnology.

maria.neofytou@cruk.cam.ac.uk @MCNeofytou

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

CRUK Cambridge Institute

Keywords

Cancer, Research, Liquid Biopsy, Early Detection, Screening

My name is Maria and I come from Cyprus, a sunny island in the Mediterranean. I moved abroad after finishing my PhD in Medical Genetics, to work on Cancer research.

mmc46@cam.ac.uk @martamcosta2

Position

Senior Research Associate

Affiliation

Zoology and Lucy Cavendish College

Keywords

Neuroscience, Connectomics, Brain Mapping, Fruit Flies, Olfaction

I am interested in how animal behaviour is encoded in circuits, with a particular focus on olfaction,and what mechanisms are used to generate both flexibility and redundancy, allowing animals to adapt to their environments.

ml897@cam.ac.uk @MikLeonardi

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Zoology

Keywords

Ancient DNA, Palaeoecology, Population Biology

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Evolutionary Ecology Group, in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. I am an evolutionary biologist trying to understand the process that shaped the populations through time

nc15@sanger.ac.uk @enjywenjy

Position

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

Spatial Genomics, Human Gonad Developmental Cell Atlas, in situ Sequencing, Transcriptomics

I am a Postdoctoral research fellow and registered Biomedical Scientist who works on human gonadal development and immuno-oncology multiplex staining on human tissue samples.

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Biochemistry

Keywords

Microbiology, Proteomics, Biotechnology

My research so far has focused on the study of infectious diseases, with a particular interest in understanding and exploiting the adaptations of microorganisms.

n.wheeler@bham.ac.uk

Position

Data Scientist, Bioinformatician

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

Machine Learning, Bacterial Evolution, Antimicrobial Resistance, Genomics

I work as a data scientist, taking large amounts of data from the real world, and using it to discover rules about how the world works.

sp2016@cam.ac.uk

Position

Research Associate

Affiliation

Surgery and Darwin College

Keywords

Regenerative Medicine, Cellular Therapy, Stem Cells, Immune-Rejection, Immune-Modulation

I am a stem cell scientist particularly interested in understanding mechanisms of allogeneic graft rejection and how to modulate them for the success of cellular therapies for regenerative medicine.

sl750@cam.ac.uk @GomollonSara

Position

Broodbank Senior Research Fellow

Affiliation

Plant Sciences

Keywords

Plant Biology, Epigenetics, Gene Regulation, sRNA, DNA Methylation, Hybrids

I am a Broodbank Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Plant Sciences. I joined the Department as a postdoc in the group of Sir David Baulcombe, working on tomato hybrids.

si341@cam.ac.uk @DrLysoGirl

Position

Girton College Bye-Fellow

Affiliation

Girton College

Keywords

Molecular Biology, Genetics, Cell Biology, Neurodegenerative diseases, Ageing

I am most curious about what happens to our brains when we age. I combine model organism, tissue culture and primary neurons studies to understand what are the key regulators of ageing.

su1@sanger.ac.uk @usluersunay

Position

Postdoctoral Fellow

Affiliation

Wellcome Sanger Institute

Keywords

Functional Genomics, CRISPR, iPSC, Neurodevelopment

My research focus on functional genomics to understand function of human genes in large scale. For this purpose, I silence all the genes in human induced pluripotent cells (hIPSC) by CRISPR-inhibition technique,

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Add your profile to the site

If you are an early career cis and trans woman researcher from the University of Cambridge or affiliated institutes, you can add your profile to the site. Fill in this form and we will be in touch.

For anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out by emailing us stepwide.cam@gmail.com.

This website

This website showcases the profiles of early career cis and trans women researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, and affiliated institutions. It originated as part of StepWide, a leadership programme that aims to support the next generation of female researchers.

We hope that by making the expertise and stories of early career women researchers more visible (and searchable!), will highlight how much they contribute to the research that is done in the University and affiliated institutions.

Who is it for

This website is designed for a wide audience, be it other researchers looking for particular expertise for a collaboration; the media looking for experts; those that are simply curious about what type of research is done in Cambridge, or those trying to get a clearer idea of what a ‘typical’ woman researcher in this years old institution does (there is no ‘typical’!).

The StepWide programme

StepWide was designed by 3 postdocs at Cambridge (see below for more on Marta, Laura and Cemre). It aims to support female postdoctoral researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, from any discipline, who feel that taking a step into leadership is not for them. The programme is designed to suit both early and more senior postdocs, providing them with the skills to challenge the current ideas of what a leader is, learn how to raise their public profiles, as well as a close and supportive network of peer-to-peer female postdocs.

StepWide ran for the first time in 2019/2021, and we are currently running a new series of workshops in 2022/2023. We will post updates here when applications open for its next run.

Laura, Marta and Cemre (left to right on the photo) met at The Postdocs of Cambridge (PdOC) Society, at the University of Cambridge, UK. When the Researcher Development (RD) Pitch Competition was announced in late 2018, they felt this provided the ideal opportunity to work together to develop a leadership programme for women postdocs. They saw a gap in the current leadership RD provision, with a lack of opportunities that challenge current leadership views. Their proposal was successful and obtained funding for a one year pilot, giving rise to the StepWide programme.

Laura Fachal is a Senior Staff Scientist at Wellcome Sanger Institute. She earned her BS in Veterinary, MSc in Biotechnology and PhD from University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She completed her postdoc at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, University of Cambridge. She is also a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College.

Marta Costa is a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Zoology. She did her undergrad in Biology in Lisbon, Portugal, followed by an MSc in Neuroscience at UCL in London. She then moved to Cambridge for her PhD, followed by a postdoc. She is also a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College.

Cemre Ustunkaya was a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. She earned her BSc in Biological Science, followed by an MSc in Archaeometry at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. She later moved to Australia for her PhD in Archaeology at The University of Queensland. She is also a postdoc affiliate at Newnham College.

Thanks and funding

StepWide was funded by the Researcher Development Pitch Competition which included support from the Researcher Development Programme, The Postdocs of Cambridge (PdOC) Society, the Postdoc Academy, the Postdoc Chairs’ Network and the Careers Service at the University of Cambridge. We are very thankful for their support. We would also like to thank Alba Gómez for her expert support with the first version of the website, and to Arian Jamasb for redesigning and implementing the newest version of this website. Finally, we thank Natacha Wilson and Rebecca Nestor for the advice and support they provided for the development of the workshops.