Laboratory members
Group Leader: Klaus Okkenhaug
- contact by email
Klaus Okkenhaug obtained his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, followed by a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Toronto, where he studied CD28 signalling in Rob Rottapel's lab. In 1999, he moved to London, UK, where he joined Bart Vanhaesebroeck's group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as a Postdoctoral Fellow, working on the role of p110δ in immune responses. Klaus joined the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development at the Babraham Institute as a Group Leader in 2003.
Research Assistant: Juliet Emery -contact by email
Juliet obtained a BSc. in Life Sciences from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada in 1996. Following that, in 2002, she graduated from Imperial College London (Wye) with a BSc. (Hons) in Animal Science (Equine). Juliet joined The Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development at the Babraham Institute in 2003 as the research Assistant in Klaus Okkenhaug’s group. She assists in all areas of research studying the role of PI3K in immune responses.
Postdoc: Fabien Garcon
- contact by email
In 2003, Fabien graduated from the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseilles, France with a PhD in immunology, after performing his thesis with Jacques Nunes in the Lymphocyte Activation Group. During this period, he investigated the role of the Tec family kinases in T cells. After a short stint in Allan Bradley's lab at the Sanger Institute he joined Klaus's group in 2004. Since then most of his activity has revolved around imaging T cells and investigating how PI3K regulates the way T cells interact with their environment.
Postdoc: Dalya Soond - contact by email
Dalya (Rosner) Soond has been studying immunity and inflammation since 1998. During M.Sc. studies with Valerie Fadok at the National Jewish Medical Research Center, she researched how epithelial cells can act as phagocytes during post-weaning mammary gland re-modelling. She next spent 4 years as a research assistant at Cambridge University, first with Martin Bennett studying effects of IFNg in atherosclerosis and then with Ken Smith investigating how a single nucleotide polymorphism in FCgRIIB predisposes patients to autoimminity.
Since 2005, she has been in Klaus Okkenhaug’s lab, first as a Ph.D. student and currently as a postdoc studying how Pten and p110δ regulates helper, memory and regulatory T cells in bacterial infection and tumour immunity.
Post-doc: Anne-Katrien Stark - contact by email
(In collaboration with Marc Veldhoen and Cellzome)
Anne-Katrien Stark graduated from the University of Pretoria, South Africa with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry. She continued her studies at the University of Surrey and obtained an M.Sc. in Clinical Biochemistry in 2006 followed by a Ph.D. in Immunology in 2011. Her research focussed on modulating T cell responses in an atherosclerosis model. She Joined Klaus Okkenhaug’s group as a postdoc in 2011, and now works in collaboration with Marc Veldhoen and Cellzome to investigate the effect of novel inhibitors of key signalling molecules on the progression of experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE).
PhD Student: Verity Dale
- contact by email
Verity Dale graduated from the University of Bristol in 2005 with a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology with study in industry at GSK, in their DMPK department. Over the following three years she worked in the DMPK department of Vernalis, a pharmaceutical company, and the pharmacology group within the bipharma UCB Celltech, where she became interested in the immune system. In 2008 she started a PhD at the Babraham Institute investigating the functionality of PI3Ks using a mouse model of infection driven by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. This model allows the study of the role of p110δ in both the innate and adaptive arms of the immune response, including memory T cells.
PhD student: Amy MacQueen - contact by email
Amy MacQueen graduated from the University of Glasgow in 2009 with an MSci in Molecular and Cellular Biology, which included a year in industry at UCB's Inflammation Centre of Excellence. She commenced her PhD at the Babraham Institute the same year following a summer as a student scientist at GSK, where she worked on PI3K inhibitors in their Respiratory Drug Discovery department. Amy's current work at Babraham focuses on the PI3K isoforms p110α and p110δ in the context of cytokine production by T cells, and the molecular basis for their different roles.
PhD student: Lizzie Slack - contact by email
Lizzie Slack qualified as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Edinburgh in 2010, with an intercalated BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Pathology from the Royal Veterinary College, London. She began her PhD at the Babraham Institute in 2010 as part of an Integrated Training Fellowship for Veterinarians. Lizzie’s project investigates the roles of p110δ and p110α in regulatory T cells, using conditional knock-out mice to examine responses to exogenous and auto- antigens.
PhD student: Edward Banham-Hall - contact by email
Ed Banham-Hall graduated from medical school in 2004 having also gained an intercalated BSc in pharmacology in 2001. He subsequently worked as a clinician in the NHS pursuing an interest in inflammation, immunity and sepsis, particularly while working in intensive care. He passed his higher professional exams in 2007 gaining membership of the Royal College of Physicians. He started working for Klaus Okkenhaug as a PhD student in 2010 studying the role of p110δ in Streptococcus pneumoniae sepsis and the potential for inhibition of p110δ as a treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus.
Past PhD students and postdocs:
Dan Patton, PhD. now at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Faruk Ramadani, PhD. now at Kings College London.
Updated 8 September, 2011