Meet some of us!

Mahir Taher

I come from a fairly large yet not diverse town down south in Hampshire. My parents migrated over before I was born, and growing up in a predominantly Asian Muslim household, I wasn’t encouraged to do much bar blindly pursue religion and education. Although I rebelled against the former, I ended up doing alright with school and took maths, physics and biology for college. I was fortunate enough to go to a college that explained the process of going to uni and be surrounded by peers who were all considering higher education and had guidance to offer, especially as I had no other personal role models in higher education. As soon as I found out I’d be getting student loans and bursaries to go to uni, I was effectively sold. I settled for a biomedical engineering degree, which was ultimately pretty enjoyable as I like the combination of physics and biology. I additionally got a taste of academia in my undergrad project, making me realise that I greatly value the flexibility of an academic research environment and the nature of learning and applying knowledge in research (particularly in interesting topics like Alzhiemer’s). Whilst applying for the funded MRC DTP was in part motivated by my desire for ‘job security’ during Corona, I am feeling happy with how the past year has gone and look forward to working on my PhD, grateful for the community and guidance of this DTP and past to get me to such a fortunate position I hadn’t envisioned even a year prior.

Meera Unnikrishnan

I grew up in India and from very early on I was keen to study Medicine. However, due to the competition, I had to settle for a Microbiology degree. Although the plan was to apply for Medicine again, I ended up falling in love with Microbiology and also realised that doing research and discovering new things was more exciting. After my Masters, I moved to the UK to do a PhD in Microbiology, studying bacterial pathogenesis, and here I became fascinated by how pathogens interact with the host. I went on to do my postdoctoral training at Harvard University, Boston, where I studied different pathogens, and how mammalian cells respond to them. I also tried doing science in an international vaccine company in Italy, which was great experience, but then eventually decided that academia is more fun. More recently I have been working across disciplines, applying novel chemistry and engineering solutions to biological questions. I think that there are some very clever pathogens around us, and there is a lot that we do not understand about them. My group now focuses on understanding medically important pathogens, how they establish infections and how we could best target them.

Craig Thompson

I grew up in Leeds in a family where my mother worked as an occupational therapist for terminally ill cancer patients. Her passion for her career and patients led to our house being filled with weird and wonderful medical and scientific objects: a full-sized skeleton in the lounge (called Yorick), a Bristol stool chart in the bathroom, and various old glass medical instruments in cupboards, amongst other things. So, between a slightly eccentric upbringing and a love of the complexity of the science I found in biology and chemistry textbooks, I ended up in academia. I am now fortunate to study how viruses evolve, cause disease, and how we can make vaccines to protect people against them with an amazing team of people. We have been involved in the development of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. I don’t think there’s ever a dull day.”

Sam Dean

I never really had a big plan to be a scientist, I always just did the thing that interested me most at the time. At A-levels this was Biology, Chemistry and English Literature, and this took me to the University of Edinburgh where I studied Biological Sciences, gravitating towards Molecular Biology by my final year.

It wasn’t until I was working as a research assistant in biotech and applying for PhDs that I realised that I was all about the parasites. I really like the fact they have these complex lives that are elaborately intertwined with our own biology. In fact, although parasites cause some of the most terrible diseases known to humanity, you will find that most parasitologists are really rather fond of them! Since I have joined WMS I have started to leverage them as a fantastic model system for understanding core eukaryotic biology and human genetic diseases.

Nicole Robb

Nina Pucekova

Growing up in a small town in northern Slovakia, I had very limited opportunities in education and personal growth. Feeling like I wanted more, I started looking for ways to satisfy my ambition, applying to various programmes that could fund my education elsewhere. That’s how I landed in the UK, studying Biology, Chemistry and Maths at A-level. I then studied Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on biotechnology, microbiology and cell biology. My favourite modules were always the cell biology ones, so I decided to do both my final-year undergraduate project and an internship in labs studying cell division. This turned out to be life changing as my internship turned into a part-time and eventually a full-time job, cementing my interest in cell division and giving me the chance to try out research before committing to it long-term. My project was part of a big collaboration between biologists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, introducing me to the importance of interdisciplinary research. It was why I applied to the MRC DTP, hoping to learn new ways to approach my biological questions. I am currently working on a project co-supervised by Prof Andrew McAinsh in WMS and Prof Nigel Burroughs in the Mathematics Institute, mixing biology and maths to understand the behaviour of kinetochores in chromosome segregation. This wouldn’t have been possible without the skills taught in the first few months of the DTP. I’m grateful for all the support we’re given to ensure doing fun cutting-edge research can be our sole focus, and for the friendly community we’re surrounded by on the programme. What else is there to ask for when doing a PhD

Annabelle Bennett

Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a teacher, cliché I know. It wasn’t until I joined high school and met my biology teacher that I developed a big interest in scientific research, cancer specifically. My teacher had a huge passion for genetics and immunology, and she conveyed that passion over to me, so much so that I chose to study Biomedical Science at the University of York, picking modules in immunology and cancer research. I have always wanted to do a PhD after my bachelor’s degree, but due to these broad interests I had, I was unsure on what to specialise in. So, when I came across this MRC DTP programme, I got very excited, as it would enable me to explore interdisciplinary modules and form my own PhD with a supervisor that I choose. I will be starting my PhD in the Davey Lab soon, in a project that Martin Davey and I designed together! Joining this programme was definitely the correct decision as I gained many skills in programming and statistical analysis that were not taught to me in undergrad that will definitely be useful in the PhD!