Co-workers 2000
Alison Collins (now Turner)
Alison was one of the top students of her year at Southampton University where she worked with Professor Martin Glennie on the characterization of antibodies raised against B-cells. In Oxford, Alison was the recipient of a prestigious Arthritis Research Campaign Studentship and won the Trinity College Progress Prize in her first year. Alison’s work focussed on the interactions of costimulatory molecules and, in particular, B7-2. These experiments signalled the demise of the concept that B7-1 and B7-2 are functionally interchangeable. With Doug Brodie of Anton van der Merwe’s group, Alison discovered the ICOS-LICOS interaction. Alison’s work has been published in Immunity, Current Biology and elsewhere. At the end of her studies here Alison seized an opportunity to join industry. (SD)
Andrea Iaboni
After graduating from the University of Toronto Schools, Andrea Iaboni entered the University of Toronto on a Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation's National Award and a Canada Scholarship for Science and Technology. At U of T, Andrea played for four years on the women's varsity rugby team, as well as playing soccer, volleyball and basketball. Andrea came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in October 1998 and within 6 weeks broke her collarbone representing the University at rugby. Three days after that she perfected one-armed dideoxy sequencing.
For her thesis work, Andrea explored the outer reaches of the B7 family of costimulatory proteins using HMM searches, cloned human and mouse LICOS, and characterized all of the murine costimulatory interactions. Towards the end of her studies Andrea also showed, with John James, that human B7-1 dimerizes at the cell surface using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer and an unloved fluorimeter from an adjoining department.
Rather than continuing directly into full-time post-doctoral research, or becoming an astronaut, Andrea returned to Canada to complete medical studies at U of T in 2002. This, we felt, was a good idea. The Space Station is far too small for a person like Andrea. (SD)
Edward Evans
I co-manage the T-cell biology group as well as continuing my own projects. For more details please go to my page.
Jan Fennelly
I trained in medical laboratory sciences in Newcastle prior to entering research working on cell surface receptors. Later I decided that a change was in order and moved to Oxford to work on OX40 and CD4 in Neil Barclay’s lab at the Dunn School. Then followed a brief departure back north to Manchester where I worked in Mike Dexter’s lab and completed a part-time BSc in applied biological sciences.
I have now worked in the T-cell biology group for seven years, taking part in many projects, including the expression and purification of B7 and related co-stimulatory proteins. More recently my main focus has been on RACE of new CD2 family members and GLGI of novel genes identified in the lab during SAGE analysis.
In my spare time I enjoy growing vegetables on my allotment and creating stained glass windows.
Lisa Sparks
Lisa came to Oxford as a Research Assistant in 1995 after taking a very good degree at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and having turned down a similar post at Smith-Kline Beecham Laboratories. Lisa’s arrival doubled the size of the T-cell biology group and her work immediately established the standard to which we have all since been aspiring. Lisa worked initially on the generation of two chimeric forms of the CD2 ligands for X-ray crystallography, each of which yielded nice structures. She subsequently, and essentially single-handedly, established the serial analysis of gene expression method in our laboratory. At the time, Lisa was one of only two people in the UK able to use the procedure. In 2001, Lisa left with her husband for a new life in the US. (SD)
Raquel Manso-Sancho
Our Spanish member of the lab graduated from high school with honours.
She then studied Biology at the University of Salamanca, famous
for
being one of the oldest universities in Europe and the place
where
Colombus argued his case for sailing westwards to the Indies.
At
University she represented her year on the staff-student committee
two
years running and was president of the Christian Union for 5
years.
Raquel joined the lab in 1999 and worked on CD28 from day one. With the help of the rest of the team she managed to clone, express, mutate, reduce and alkylate CD28, representing a triumph of ambition and will that make Columbus' efforts seem half-hearted. She also succeeded in teaching the lab members essential Spanish (Hola! Que tal? Una cerveza, por favor).
Raquel is currently persuing her alternative career as mum to her three daughters Damaris, Noemi and Rebeca.
Shinji Ikemizu
I was an undergraduate and Master’s course student at Tottori University from 1985 to 1991. I then moved to the Photon Factory in Tsukuba for my PhD, working on the structural analysis of ω-amino acid:pyruvate aminotransferase complexed with several ligands. After my degree was awarded in 1994, I continued these studies for a further two and a half years under the supervision of Prof. Noriyoshi Sakabe. I asked Professors David I. Stuart and E. Yvonne Jones to join their group during one of their visits to the Photon Factory for data collection. I moved to Oxford University, funded first as a Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellow, then as a Wellcome Trust Post-Doctoral Fellow, in 1996.
With Professors Stuart and Jones and Dr Simon Davis (now Prof. Davis!) I studied the structural basis of recognition by several cell surface proteins from the immune system, most notably CD48, CD58, B7-1(CD80) and the B7-1/CTLA-4 complex. These research experiences gave me a position back in Japan in 2001. My current post is that of Associate Professor in the Division of Structural Biology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kumamoto University.