Spotlight on... Professor Gordon Brown
Spotlight on... Professor Al Brown
Spotlight on... Professor Adilia Warris
Spotlight on... Prof Elaine Bignell
Spotlight on... Professor Neil Gow
Spotlight on... Dr Alex Brand
Spotlight on... Dr Duncan Wilson
Spotlight on... Dr Liliane Mukaremera
MRC CMM team
The MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (MRC CMM) at The University of Exeter is one of the largest medical mycology groupings worldwide. Researchers within the MRC CMM represent a broad umbrella of expertise from fundamental research into the biology of fungal pathogens to patient care and translational science.
This wide-ranging expertise enables the development of unique synergies within the Centre, facilitating the simultaneous analysis of both the host and pathogen to determine their individual contributions to the pathogenesis of disease.
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Professor Gordon Brown is the Director of the MRC CMM. His primary research interests are C-type lectin receptors (CLRs) and their role in homeostasis and immunity, with a particular focus on antifungal immunity. He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Cape Town and is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) since April 2020. |
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Professor Elaine Bignell is a Co-Director (Research) for the MRC CMM since July 2020. Her research seeks a mechanistic understanding of fungal lung disease caused by Aspergillus with a view to developing novel diagnostics and antifungal therapies. Her approach integrates infection models which transcend multiple experimental scales to address disease outcomes at the molecular, cellular, tissue, organ and whole animal levels. Her research has focussed on defining the cause of the disease, and is working on developing treatments, vaccines and diagnostic tools. |
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Professor William Horsnell is a Co-Director (Education) for the MRC CMM. His research interests centre on 1: how our exposure to one type of disease alters our ability to control a different disease and 2: how mothers’ immunity can shape offspring immunity. Much of this work focuses on immunity to a range of mucosal infectious (including helminths, bacteria, viruses and fungi) and non-infectious (e.g. allergy) diseases. At the MRC CMM he will be contributing to the immunology and co-infection research interests of the centre as well as contributing to the management of the centre's education activities. |
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Professor Adilia Warris is a Co-Director (Clinical) for the MRC CMM and a paediatric infectious diseases specialist with a specific interest in medical mycology. She is a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases in Great Ormond Street Hospital and her research has a strong translational focus, which includes the host-fungus interaction in specific patient groups with an emphasis on Aspergillus species and the development of new management strategies for invasive fungal disease in children. |
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Dr Elizabeth Ballou has recently pioneered in-vitro and single-cell approaches to study key fungal morphogenic transitions underpinning pathogenesis. She brings her expertise to Exeter to study structural changes in human fungal pathogens, particularly how fungi integrate environmental signals to undergo morphological changes underpinning pathogenesis. |
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Dr Steve Bates works on the Molecular and Cellular Biology of the common human fungal pathogen Candida albicans, identifying the cell surface and secreted epitopes that contribute to the host-fungal interaction and virulence. More recently he also started working on Zymoseptoria tritici, the major fungal pathogen of wheat in the EU. |
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Dr Alexandra Brand is a Wellcome Senior Research Fellow and a fungal cell biologist. She combines molecular and biophysical approaches with live-cell imaging to investigate the regulation of directional growth of hyphae in response to the spatiophysical properties of the environment. This directional growth promotes matrix penetration and host tissue invasion that is fundamental to disease progression. |
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Professor Al Brown's research team combines genomics, molecular biology and modelling to define how Candida albicans adapts to the dynamism and complexity of host niches, and how this promotes immune evasion during colonisation and infection. |
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Dr Carolina Coelho was recruited as an Immunology lecturer within the MRC CMM in February 2019. She is initiating her research programme studying immunity against Cryptococcus neoformans infections as well as the important role of host mitochondria during phagocytic clearance. |
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Dr Peter Cook is a Sir Henry Dale Fellow who joined the MRC CMM in April 2020. Peter’s research focuses on understanding how the lung-airway environment influences innate immunity to mediate anti-fungal allergic disease, a recognised key neglected area of research. Of the 500,000 asthma-related human deaths occurring annually, 50% are caused by fungal sensitisation to airborne spores of the environmental mould Aspergillus fumigatus. A mechanistic understanding of asthmatic immunopathology will radically improve therapeutic strategies for all asthmatic disease. |
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Dr Rhys Farrer is a bioinformatician who was recruited to the MRC CMM in late 2018. He exploits high-throughput/next generation sequencing to study the evolution, epidemiology and pathobiology of fungal pathogens, and the genomic, transcriptomic, and gene-regulatory variation within fungal populations. |
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Professor Neil Gow was appointed in September 2018 as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact at the University of Exeter. He is a microbiologist with whose research focuses on the molecular genetics of cell wall biosynthesis in pathogenic fungi, its potential as a therapeutic target and its influence on immunity. |
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Professor Tom Harrison joined the MRC CMM in August 2020. He is also the Deputy Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity, and Lead for the Centre of Global Health at St George's University. He is also Honorary Consultant at St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Tom leads a research programme on the prevention and treatment of cryptococcal meningitis, the most common cause of meningitis in Africa, and responsible for an estimated 180,000 deaths per year and 10-20% of all HIV-related deaths. |
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Dr Liliane Mukaremera who is a Lecturer in the Division of Medical Microbiology, was born and raised in Rwanda and experienced first-hand problems related to poverty and infectious diseases in Africa. Her research interests focus on understanding factors that affect the interaction between fungal pathogens and their host, with an aim to understand how these fungi evade the host immune system. One of her primary interests is the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans which causes meningitis, particularly in patients with HIV/AIDS, and results in around 130 000 deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa every year. |
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Dr Johannes Rack is a MRC Career Development Fellow at the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Mark Ramsdale is an Associate Professor in Biosciences and joined Exeter in 2006. Mark was Director of Education from 2015 to 2020. The main focus of his research is to further our understanding of stress and programmed cell death responses exhibited by fungi, in particular Candida albicans. |
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Dr Jane Usher is a BBSRC Discovery Fellow at the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Duncan Wilson is Wellcome Senior Fellow. He discovered and characterised the first zinc scavenging mechanism of Candida albicans - the secreted “zincophore” system – which is critical for pathogenicity. His current research focuses on understanding how pathogenic fungi manage homeostasis of the essential micronutrient zinc, during infection. |
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Dr Rachael Dangarembizi (CMM AFRICA Unit) is a Senior Lecturer and neuroscientist in the Department of Human Biology and the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town whose main research interest is neuroimmune responses to fungal infections. Her current research focusses on the inflammatory response to Cryptococcus neoformans infection in the brain. |
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Dr J. Claire Hoving (CMM AFRICA Unit) is Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town and Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellow in Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Senior Lecturer in the Division of Immunology, whose research aims at understanding host immune responses to HIV-related fungal infections. As an Associate Member of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine and a contributing investigator of the Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa, her current major focus is understanding the immune response to Pneumocystis jirovecii, which is a common cause of pneumonia and death in patients with HIV/AIDS in Africa and which is estimated to kill over 250 000 worldwide every year. |
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Professor Judith Berman (Honorary PI) is a Professor at Tel Aviv University since 2012 and Professor Emerita at the University of Minnesota. She studies how pathogenic yeasts respond to their environments, primarily using Candida albicans and Candida glabrata. She is working to understand drug response mechanisms caused by genetic mutations, genomic copy number changes, as well as by physiological processes that affect genetically identical cells differently. |
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Professor Tihana Bicanic (Honorary PI) is a Professor and Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Mycology at St. George’s University of London (profile). Her research focusses on evolution, impact and mitigation of antifungal resistance in Cryptococcus and Candida. She has performed clinical trials in cryptococcal meningitis in Africa, as well as translational work linking Cryptococcal virulence phenotype and genomics to clinical presentation and outcome. She is currently Chief Investigator on two UK multi-centre studies: aspergillosis complicating severe influenza and COVID19 infection (AspiFlu) and Candida resistance in the ICU (CandiRes). |
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Professor Andy Borman (Honorary PI) is the Deputy Director of Public Health England’s UK National Mycology Reference Laboratory since 2003 and also an Honorary Professor at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, UK. His research interests include the epidemiology of emerging fungal pathogens and neglected tropical diseases caused by filamentous fungi, the diagnosis and management of fungal infections, the molecular and proteomic identification of pathogenic fungi, fungi associated with cystic fibrosis, and fungal taxonomy, phylogenetics and nomenclature. |
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Professor Nelesh Govender (Honorary PI) is currently Head of The Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses (CHARM), part of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, and works closely with the South African Department of Health to generate evidence to guide government policy. He is also a Professor and Mycology Division Head in the School of Pathology, University of the Witwatersrand and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT). |
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Professor William Hope (Honorary PI) is Dame Sally Davies Chair of Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Director of Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases Research at the University of Liverpool in the UK, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. |
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Professor Elizabeth Johnson (Honorary PI) is a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Medical Mycology and the Director of Public Health England’s UK National Mycology Reference Laboratory, Bristol, UK. She has worked in the field of medical mycology since graduating and gained her PhD from Bristol University in 1986 whilst training as a Clinical Scientist. She has been a Consultant Clinical Scientist and the Director of the Public Health England (or its earlier iterations) National Mycology Reference Laboratory and curator of the National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi for the last 20 years. Her particular interests are in the areas of antifungal drugs, diagnosis of fungal infection and identification of pathogenic fungi and she enjoys teaching and disseminating knowledge in these areas. |
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A/Prof Sean Wasserman (Honorary PI) is is an infectious diseases specialist based at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. His main research area is his main research area is treatment optimisation for tuberculosis and HIV-associated opportunistic infection. Sean is a pharmacologist on the ACTG Tuberculosis Transformative Science Group and a member of the NIH-CDC-HIVMA/IDSA Guidelines Committee for Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in Adults and Adolescents with HIV. Sean is a consultant and Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town; Co-Lead of the Clinical Research Platform at the Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa); Associate Member, Institute for Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town; Honorary Associate Professor at the MRC CMM, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Exeter. |
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Professor Chris Thornton is a Fungal Immunologist with a specialist interest in hybridoma technology and monoclonal antibodies. His research focuses on mould pathogens of humans, and their detection using lateral-flow technology and antibody-guided imaging. He has had particular success in bench-to-bedside translation of his research to the medical sector through ISCA Diagnostics, a University spin-out company he established in 2012. |
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Dr Janet Willment |
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Yasmin Ariqat is the Technician for the MRC CMM. |
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Dorota Bejger is the Assistant Laboratory Technician for the MRC CMM. |
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Ange Brennan is the Public Engagement and Communications Manager (job share with Rachel Etherington) for the MRC CMM. Ange works the rest of her time at the Univeristy of Manchester as Medical Writer and Web Editor for LIFE Worldwide (Leading International Fungal Education). |
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Merin Cox-Davies is the Executive Personal Assistant to Prof Adilia Warris. |
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Dr Vicki Dunn is the Research Development Manager for the MRC CMM. Vicki has a research background in environmental microbiology. She joined the University of Exeter in 2016 having previously worked at the University of Oxford. She provides support for academics applying for external research grants, and has worked across a wide range of disciplines, with academics from Humanities, Engineering, and the Medical School and has experience of preparing applications to a wide range of funders. |
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Rachel Etherington is the Public Engagement and Communications Manager (job share with Ange Brennan) for the MRC CMM. Rachel has joined us in 2023 after working as Communities Engagement Manager for TREE at the University of Exeter. |
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Jamie Harvey is the Research and Ethics Manager for the MRC CMM. |
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Sara Honey is the Technical Operations Manager for the MRC CMM. She manages the operational requirements for the laboratories in the Centre and is responsible for the leadership and management of the technical team who support it. Sara obtained Registered Scientist status with the IST, drawing upon her varied and progressive technical career in industry and education. |
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Dr Andrea Kovacs-Simon is the Cell Culture Technologist for cell culture technologies at the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Alberto Muñoz is the Research Centre Manager for the MRC CMM. Alberto’s scientific background is in fungal cell biology. ln 2014 he moved into Project Management, where he managed large EU funded projects, as well as UKRI funded programmes, before joining the MRC CMM in September 2019. |
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Jenny Spencer is the Centre Administrator for the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Darren Thomson is the Senior Experimental Officer for the MRC CMM. Darren is an imaging scientist who applies and disseminates advanced live-cell imaging technologies and image processing techniques. |
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Kate Tresidder is the Research Finance Assistant Manager for the MRC CMM. |
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Harriet Webber is the HR Recruitment Lead for the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Seána Duggan was recruited as an Early Career Fellow to the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology in February 2022. Her research will focus on fungal - bacterial co-infections. |
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Dr Jamie Harrison has joined the MRC CMM as an Early Career Fellow in January 2023 focused on Medical Mycology and Bioinformatics. |
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Dr Olga Nev is a MRC Skills Development Fellow working on the project 'Metabolic modelling in the fungal pathogen, Pneumocystis'. |
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Dr Agate Auzane is a postdoctoral researcher in Neil Gow's group.
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Dr Tina Bedekovic is a postdoctoral researcher in Liz Ballou's group. |
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Dr Tanmoy Chakraborty is a postdoctoral researcher in Duncan Wilson's group whose current research focuses on the regulation of Zn homoeostasis in human fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Tanmoy started his research career in the field of molecular mycology as a Junior Research Fellow in Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, a premier research institute in India under the supervision of Prof. Kaustuv Sanyal. His research interest was cell cycle regulation by protein kinase and epigenetic regulation of biofilm formation by minor histone variants in human fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Tanmoy was awarded the Marie Curie ITN fellowship for pursuing his doctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Attila Gácser in the Department of Microbiology, University of Szeged, Hungary in 2014. The topic of his PhD thesis was to elucidate the role of fungal eicosanoid molecules and micronutrient acquisition in the virulence of human fungal pathogen Candida parapsilosis. |
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Dr Dora Corzo Leon is a postdoctoral researcher in Liz Ballou's group |
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Dr Ivy Dambuza is a postdoctoral researcher in Gordon Brown's group working on the project: 'Role of CLRs in Adaptive Immunity'. |
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Dr Cláudio Duarte-Oliveira is a postdoctoral researcher in Elaine Bignell's group. |
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Dr Vanessa Francis is a postdoctoral researcher in Elaine Bignell's group. |
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Dr Tatiana Joumsi-Tagne is a postdoctoral researcher in Steven Bates' group.
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Dr Iana Kalinina is a postdoctoral researcher in Duncan Wilson's group.
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Dr Qinxi Ma is a postdoctoral researcher in Rhys Farrer's group. Qinxi is originally from Beijing. She did her PhD in Infection Biology at Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research at UCD under supervision of Prof. Geraldine Butler to investigate novel antifungal agents against Candida species. After finishing her PhD, Qinxi moved to Belgium in early 2019, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Functional Biology Lab at KU Leuven to decipher the importance of vacuole-mitochondria communication in the yeast models for Parkinson’s disease. She then joined the MRC CMM in February 2020 as a postdoctoral research fellow. |
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Dr Mariano Malamud is a postdoctoral researcher in Gordon Brown's group. |
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Dr Dhara Malavia is a postdoctoral researcher in Neil Gow's group working on the project: 'Targeting Candida albicans cell wall enzymes'. |
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Dr Bethany McCann joined Professor Elaine Bignell’s research group on an undergraduate summer studentship in 2014, before undertaking her PhD titled ‘From Bug to Drug: Identification of novel inhibitors of pH signalling in the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus’ which was completed in 2019 under her supervision. Her PhD research was focused on identifying innovative methods required to find novel inhibitors of the pathogenically important pH signalling pathway of A. fumigatus. During her PhD I undertook an industrial placement with a small drug discovery company, Blueberry Therapeutics. Her research interests lie in understanding the virulence mechanisms that drive fungal pathogenicity including how fungi adapt, interact with and damage host environments upon infection and how these mechanisms can be exploited for the identification of novel antifungals. |
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Dr Rashid Minhas is a postdoctoral researcher in Mark Ramsdale and Tetsu Kudoh's groups. |
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Dr Arnab Pradhan is a postdoctoral researcher in Neil Gow's group. |
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Dr Mubashshir Rasheed is a postdoctoral researcher in Adilia Warris' group. |
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Dr Elena Roselletti is a postdoctoral researcher in Duncan Wilson's group. |
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Dr Sumita Roy is a postdoctoral researcher in Neil Gow's group. |
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Dr Fabian Salazar Lizama is a postdoctoral researcher in Gordon Brown's group working on the project: 'Role of CLRs in innate and adaptive immunity to fungi'. |
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Dr Emily Sey is a postdoctoral researcher in Adilia Warris' group. |
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Dr Julio Silva is a postdoctoral researcher in Peter Cook's group. |
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Dr Mark Stappers is a postdoctoral researcher in Neil Gow's group working on the project: 'Use of Pattern Recognition Receptor Probes to identify novel genes involved in Candida albicans cell wall assembly'. |
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Dr Diana Patricia Tamayo Ossa is a postdoctoral researcher in Rhys Farrer's group working on on epigenetics underpinning drug resistance in Cryptococcus.
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Dr Emily Chesshyre is a clinical research fellow in Prof Adilia Warris' group investigating the role of Aspergillus infection in cystic fibrosis lung disease in children and adolescents. |
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Dr Laura Ferreras Antolin is a clinical research fellow in Prof Adilia Warris’ group focussing on antifungal stewardship in paediatrics. |
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Dr Alison Gifford is a clinical PhD fellow who first joined the MRC CMM in Sept 2020 as a clinical research fellow undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology. She is an academic paediatric registrar with an interest in child global health, specifically neurology. |
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Dr William Hurt is a clinical PhD fellow at the MRC CMM. |
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Dr Matthew Steward is a clinical fellow in the Cook Group.
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Dr Eva Wooding is a clinical research fellow working with Adilia Warris and Emily Chesshyre. |
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Cameron Bedford is a research technician in Alex Brand's group. |
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Eduardo Galue is a Research Technician in Liliane Mukaremera's group. |
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Nicolas Helmstetter is a research technician in Rhys Farrer's Group. He joined the MRC CMM in January 2020. |
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Rebecca Inman is a Research Technician in Drug Discovery. |
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Ian Leaves joined the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology in January 2020 as a Technician in Alistair Brown’s group. He has an interest in Molecular biology and Microscopy. |
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Dr Cecilia Rodrigues is a research technician in Gordon Brown's group. |
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Adam Bainbridge is a PhD student in Dr Johannes Rack’s group. |
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Daniel Conn is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Peter Cook funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Defining the precise fungal motifs that elicit pulmonary immunity'. |
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Maria Cortada Roca is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Steven Bates funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Systematic identification of Candida albicans secreted proteins required for virulence'. |
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Dr Hugh Gifford is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Rhys Farrer funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Determining the origins of Candida auris from experimental, epidemiological and ecological investigations'. |
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Johanna Gosciniak is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Elaine Bignell and Dr Alex Brand funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Mechanistic basis of effector-mediated pneumocyte killing in the pathogenic mould, A. fumigatus'. |
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Jack Gregory is a PhD student in Dr Elizabeth Ballou’s group. |
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Larissa John is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Elaine Bignell funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Discovery and functional characterisation of novel combination therapies to combat drug-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida auris infections'. |
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Daniel Jones is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Liz Ballou funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Molecular mechanisms regulating the yeast-to-titan switch in Cryptococcus neoformans'. |
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Elliot Mahoney is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Adilia Warris funded by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, whose PhD project title is: 'Targeting Immunotherapy for Fungal Infections in Cystic Fibrosis'. |
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William Newton is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Carolina Coelho funded by the NIHR BRC training programme. |
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Phuong Tuyen Nguyen is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Peter Cook funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Deciphering how Cystic Fibrosis impairs macrophage led immunity against Aspergillus spores'.
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Harry Osborne is a PhD Student in Professor Neil Gow’s group. |
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Mark Peacock is a PhD student under the supervision of Profs Carol Munro (University of Aberdeen) and Neil Gow funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Drug induced tolerance mechanisms: a driver for fungal persistence?' Mark completed his BSc (honours) Microbiology, University of Glasgow in 2017, a MSc Stratified medicine and Pharmacological innovation, University of Glasgow in 2018, and a MRes Medical Mycology and fungal immunology, University of Aberdeen in 2019. |
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Emily Plumpton is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr peter Cook funded by the NIHR BRC training programme. |
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Abby Potton is a PhD student in Dr Elizabeth Ballou’s group. |
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Orlando Ross is a PhD Student in Professor William Horsnell’s group.
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Jane Rush is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Gordon Brown. |
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Aidana Sagynayeva is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Elaine Bignell. |
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Romey Shoesmith is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Gordon Brown and Dr Janet Willment, funded by the Wellcome Trust studying the functional characterization of MelLec in immunity. |
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Dr Tyng Hwey Tan, based at The University of Aberdeen, is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Carol Munro (University of Aberdeen) and Prof Gordon Brown funded by the MRC CMM training programme, whose PhD project title is: 'Development of Aspergillus cell surface-targeting antibodies as novel theranostics'.
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Catrin Williams is a PhD student in Dr Jane Usher’s group. |
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Gayathri Chandran is a MRes student undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology course. |
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Eleni Didon is a MRes student undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology course. |
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Irere Hilari is a MRes student undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology course. |
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Charlie Holt is a MRes student undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology course. |
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Grace Paul is a MRes student undertaking the MRes in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology course. |