Current Lab Members
 
Featured
Andrea Brand
Andrea Brand

a.brand@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Andrea Brand PhD FRS FMedSci, Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology, Royal Society Darwin Trust Research Professor, Member of the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience.

Europe PMC | Pubmed
Follow on Twitter @andreabrandlab

Lab Members

Featured
Alex Donovan, PhD - Postdoctoral Fellow
Alex Donovan, PhD - Postdoctoral Fellow

a.donovan@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Alex carried out his undergraduate studies in neuroscience at King's College London, during which time he worked on placode formation in Xenopus Laevis under the supervision of Dr. Esther Bell. He then stayed at King’s to pursue a PhD in the lab of Prof. Albert Basson, studying the epigenetic control of murine cerebral cortex growth and patterning by chromatin remodelling. Alex joined the Brand lab in 2020 to investigate the regulation of neural stem cell quiescence and reactivation.

Maire Brace
Maire Brace

m.brace@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Maire is on the MB/PhD programme funded by the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. After graduating from the University of St Andrews with a BSc(hons) in Medicine, she transferred to Cambridge for her clinical studies and an intercalated PhD. She is interested in insulin signalling in Drosophila neural stem cell reactivation, and tumorigenesis. She hopes to pursue a Clinical Academic career combining a neurological specialty with stem cell research. She is currently a member of Robinson College.

Cían Doherty
Cían Doherty

c.doherty@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Cían studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2020. While at Oxford, he completed a summer research project on homeobox gene evolution in Professor Alison Woollard’s lab, as well as a summer internship at a biotech VC fund in San Francisco. Cían is an MPhil in Developmental Biology student, and joined the Brand lab in 2021 to study single-cell data analysis techniques, applying these to understand quiescence, reactivation and differentiation of neural stem cells.

Catherine Davidson - Lab Manager
Catherine Davidson - Lab Manager

c.davidson@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Catherine studied Human Biology at the University of Surrey as an undergraduate. During her career, she has worked in research labs in the Biochemistry Dept., University of Cambridge, the VA Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Biochemistry Dept. at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, London. She joined Andrea Brand’s Lab as Lab Manager in 1994.

Anna Malkowska
Anna Malkowska

a.malkowska@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Anna graduated with a BSc in Biomedical Science from the University of Sheffield in 2019. During her undergraduate studies, she did summer projects in Professor Stephen Renshaw’s lab investigating the role of the PI3K pathway during bacterial infection, followed by a thesis on the development of dopaminergic neurons in zebrafish with Dr Jon Wood at Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience. She then enrolled in the Wellcome Trust Developmental Mechanisms 4-year PhD programme at University of Cambridge, rotating in different labs before joining the Brand lab to work on chromatin states in neural stem cells.

Bernardo Delarue Bizzini
Bernardo Delarue Bizzini

b.bizzini@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Bernardo graduated with a B.Sc in Biotechnology from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), ETH Zurich in 2016. He then joined the Lab of Prof. Papassotiropoulos and Prof. Dominique de Quervain in the Biozentrum of Basel to investigate human genotype variants and their link to emotional memory and PTSD. In 2018, Bernardo completed an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise at the University of Cambridge before joining the investment team of a Swiss-based venture capital company. Bernardo joined the Brand Lab in 2020 to work on transcriptional control of neurons and neurodegeneration.

Nemira Zilinskaite
Nemira Zilinskaite

n.zilinskaite@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Nemira graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Bsc. Hons. in Biotechnology in 2020. During her degree, she was part of iGEM Nottingham team winning Gold in 2018. In the summer of 2019, she joined the lab of Dr Sebastian Eves-van den Akker at the University of Cambridge, where she investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of parasitic nematodes. She went on to conduct her Bachelors dissertation in Prof Rupert Fray’s group, focusing on the epigenetic regulation of polyadenylnation. Nemira joined the Brand Lab in 2020 as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and will be investigating quiescence and reactivation in neural stem cells.

Laura-Yvonne Gherghina
Laura-Yvonne Gherghina

l-y.gherghina@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Laura studied Biochemistry at Imperial College London, earning a BSc in 2021. As an undergraduate, she was involved in a number of research projects including a summer studentship at the University of Oxford investigating astrocytic gap junction activity during sleep, as well as a final year project at Imperial exploring craniofacial morphogenesis in avian embryos. Laura joined the Brand lab in 2021 as a PhD student to explore neural stem cell quiescence and reactivation using Drosophila flies and brain organoids as model systems.

Alumni

Destinations of former Brand Lab members

 
 

Former Post Doctoral Fellows

Oriol Llora-Batlle, PhD (2022)
Team Lead External R&D Alliances, Single Cell Discoveries, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Thomas Genais, PhD (2022)
AFPA Toulouse, France

Neha Agrawal, PhD (2021)
Group Leader, Lecturer in Molecular Genetics, University of Edinburgh, UK

Jelle van den Ameele, PhD (2020)
Group Leader, MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK

Robert Krautz, PhD (2019)
Post Doctoral Research, The Bioinformatics Centre, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Takumi Suzuki, PhD (2019)
Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, Japan

Abhijit Das, PhD (2017)
Assistant Professor, School of Bio Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

Elizabeth Caygill, PhD (2016)
New Zealand Graduate School of Education, Christchurch, New Zealand

Owen Marshall, PhD (2016)
Senior Research Fellow (Group Leader), Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

Katrina Gold, PhD (2016)
Science Portfolio Adviser, Wellcome Trust, London, UK

Pauline Spéder, PhD (2015)
Group Leader, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Josephine Bageritz, PhD (2015)
Post Doctoral Research, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Paul Fox, PhD (2015)
Senior Scientist, Abbvie Biotechnology, Barceloneta, Puerto Rico

Tony Southall, PhD (2014) 
Lecturer in Neurogenetics, Imperial College, London, UK

David Doupe, PhD (2013)
HFSP Fellow, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Boris Egger, PhD (2011)
Lecturer, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Anne Pelissier-Monier, PhD (2010)
Assistant Professor, CBD, Toulouse, France

Karin Edoff, PhD (2009)
Senior Researcher, Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Ugo Mayor, PhD (2008)
Group Leader, CIC BioGUNE, Bizkaia, Spain

David Elliott, PhD (2007)
Group Leader, Cardiac Development, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Michael Murray, PhD (2003)
Lab Head, Department of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia

Torsten Bossing, PhD (2008)
Senior Research Fellow, Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, UK

Ulrik John, PhD (1999)
Statewide Leader, Primary Industries Victorian Agri-Biosciences Centre, Victoria, Australia; Senior Research Scientist, Victorian Department of Primary Industries, Melbourne, Australia

Alicia Hidalgo, PhD (1997)
Reader in Developmental Neurobiology, University of Birmingham, UK

 

Former Research Staff

Amy Foreman, PhD (2022)
Scientific Programme Manager, EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, UK

Rebecca Yakob, PhD (2022)
Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Melanie Cranston (2016)
Research Assistant, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Former Graduate Students

Leia Judge, PhD (2023) Scientific Editor at Cell Press Multi-Journal Submission, London, UK

Jocelyn Tang, PhD (2023) Post Doctoral Research, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg, Germany

Diana Arman, PhD (2023)

Tara Srinivas, MPhil (2021) Fulbright Fellow, Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Spain

Benjamin Badger, PhD (2020) Data Scientist Consultant, Guidehouse, North Carolina, USA

Anna Hakes, PhD (2020) Post Doctoral Research, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, USA

Stephanie Norwood, PhD (2019)
Public Engagement Officer, Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK

Mo Zhao, PhD (2019)
6 Dimensions Capital, Shanghai, China

Leo Otsuki, PhD (2018)
Post Doctoral Research, Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria

Seth Cheetham, PhD (2017)
Post Doctoral Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Janina Ander, PhD (2017)
Raspberry Pi, Cambridge, UK

Jack Etheredge, PhD (2017)
Post Doctoral Research, Janelia Research Campus, USA

Chloe Shard, PhD (2016)
Post Doctoral Research, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Jun Liu, PhD (2014)
Medical Student, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Esteban Contreras, PhD (2014)
Post Doctoral Research, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

Jorge Buendia Buendia, MPhil (2013)
Associate Computational Biologist, Broad Institute, Harvard University, Boston, USA

Katrina Gold, PhD (2011)
Post Doctoral Research, UCSF, San Francisco, USA; Science Portfolio Adviser, Wellcome Trust, London, UK

Clare Howard, MPhil (2011)
MD/PhD Programme, Columbia University, NY, USA

Alyson Thompson, PhD (2011)
Consultant, Bain and Company, London, UK

Paul Wu, MD PhD (2010)
Resident, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan; Assistant Professor, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Jakob von Trotha, PhD (2010)
Post Doctoral Research, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France; Post Doctoral Research, Technische Universität, Braunschweig, Germany

James Chell, PhD (2008)
Post Doctoral Research, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

James Dods, PhD (2008)
Global Partnerships Manager, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia

Adrian Carr, PhD (2006)
Post Doctoral Research, University of Cambridge, UK; Bioinformatics Team Leader, Fios Genomics, Edinburgh, UK

John Solly, PhD (2006)
Director, Myrovlytis Trust Medical Research Charity, London, UK

Catherine French, PhD (2006)
Deloitte and Touche, London, UK

Semil Choksi, PhD (2005)
Post Doctoral Research, IMCB, Singapore; Visiting Scientist, UCSF, San Francisco, USA

Michael Hewett, PhD (2005)
Deloitte and Touche, London, UK

Monique Gupta, MPhil MD (2005)
Washington University Medical School, MO, USA

Vaishnavi Krishnan, PhD (2004)
Post Doctoral Research, Chennai, India; Research Scientist, Clonexpress, Washington D.C., USA

Claudia Barros, PhD (2003)
Post Doctoral Research, Scripps Research Institute, CA, USA; Research Fellow in Neurobiology, Bangor University, UK; Lecturer in Neuroscience, Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry

Peter van Roessel, PhD MD (2002)
Stanford University Medical School, CA, USA; Columbia University Medical School, NY, USA; Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Julia Kaltschmidt, PhD (2001)
Post Doctoral Research, Columbia University, NY, USA; Group Leader, Sloan-Kettering Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, NY, USA

Leslie Manace, MPhil MD (2001)
Mount Sinai Medical School, NY, USA

Chris Phelps, PhD (2000)
Principal Scientist, Inpharmatica, London, UK; Director of New Product Development, IMS Health, Bournemouth, UK

Neil Hayward, PhD (2000)
Director, Abcam, Cambridge, USA; Founder, Cambridge Blue Consulting, Biotechnology, Boston, USA

Alison Schuldt, PhD (1998)
Senior Editor, Nature Cell Biology; Chief Editor, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology; Research Project Manager, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Cambridge, UK

Emma Louise Dormand, PhD MD (1997)
Post Doctoral Research, California Institute of Technology, CA, USA; Clinical School, Oxford University, UK; Radiologist, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK

Lab Events

Lab events