I started my career in immunology, obtaining my PhD from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge, where I studied the regulation of immunoglobulin gene expression. I continued to work in this field for a number of years before moving to the CRUK Cambridge Institute investigating genetic risk for breast and lung cancer. I worked in close collaboration with clinicians and computational biologists, using transcriptional networks to understand the combined effect of inherited risk variants for cancer. I am fascinated by the way gene regulatory networks determine cell types and cell states and hope that the Human Cell Atlas will further our understanding in how cell fate decisions are made and can potentially be modified in therapeutic applications. I enjoy working in multidisciplinary teams, bringing together expertise from biology, medicine, computing and technology development to tackle big problems in modern biomedicine, which the Human Cell Atlas has the potential to address.
My timeline
Became Principal Staff Scientist within the Cellular Genetics Group at the Sanger Institute
Joined the Teichmann group as Senior Staff Scientist
Group Leader Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge
Associate Scientist in Prof. Sir Bruce Ponder's laboratory at the CRUK Cambridge Institute and Department of Oncology
Principal investigator and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the CIMR and Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge
Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge
Completion of PhD at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and start of post-doctoral fellowship