BIRMINGHAM AND NOTTINGHAM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Imaging Officer, ( Birmingham )
Dylan Owen completed a Physics degree in 2004, MRes in Protein and Membrane Chemical Biology in 2005 and PhD in Biomedical Optics in 2008, all at Imperial Collage London. His PhD involved the development of fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) instrumentation and their application to study membrane lipid microdomains in T cells. After his PhD, Dylan undertook a postdoctoral position in the lab of Katharina Gaus at the Centre for Vascular Research and later the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. There, he was awarded a Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to use fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to analyse the dynamics of receptors at the T cell immunological synapse. He also started working with one of the first commercial single-molecule localisaton microscopy (SMLM) systems, providing developmental testing and developing the first quantitative statistical analysis to quantify protein clustering from these systems. These were used to analyse the distributions of kinases and adaptor proteins at the T cell synapse.
In 2012, Dylan accepted a lectureship position at King's College London jointly between the Department of Physics and the Randall Division of Biophysics, starting in 2013. He was awarded a Marie-Curie Career Integration Grant in 2013 and an ERC Starter Grant in 2014 to develop advanced fluorescence imaging methodology and apply them to study the organization of signalling molecules in T cells. Notable developments from this project include the development of model-based, Bayesian cluster analysis, SMLM-based actin fiber analysis and the discovery that mutations in the PTPN22 phosphatase that predispose for autoimmune disease cause aberrant nanoscale organization. In 2018 He was awarded a BBSRC grant to continue the development of analysis methodology for SMLM, including the first applications of machine learning techniques. During his time at King's College, Dylan lectured 3 rd and 4 th year undergraduate modules in Biophysics, acted as head of Research for the Physics Department and co-founded the London Super-Resolution meeting series. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2016 and Reader in 2018.
In 2019, Dylan moved to the University of Birmingham, taking up an Interdisciplinary Chair between the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy and the School of Mathematics, as well as membership of COMPARE. Dylan's lab continues to develop new microscopy methods - especially in super-resolution image analysis and apply them to understand the biophysics of cell membranes and the role of nanoscale organization in regulating T cell function. He was appointed Deputy-Director (Birmingham) of COMPARE in 2021. Dylan leads 2 modules on image analysis and modelling for the Birmingham MSc in Bioimaging and leads the Cell and Molecular Biology foundation module for the Birmingham International Academy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management and Administration Team
- Research Co - Ordinator ( Birmingham )
Job Titles:
- Deputy Chair of the Management Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Deputy Chair of the Management Board
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow in Image Analysis and Is Based at the University of Birmingham
Jeremy Pike joined COMPARE in 2017 as a Research Fellow in Image Analysis and is based at the University of Birmingham. Jeremy completed his PhD in Birmingham where he developed automated image analysis workflows to quantify receptor trafficking using confocal microscopy. Subsequently he worked as an image analyst and microscopy specialist at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. Here he developed expertise in a range of analysis techniques and applied these methods to applications in cancer research, including the development of automated feedback microscopy protocols.
In his role at COMPARE Jeremy will collaborate with research groups to design image analysis workflows. Alongside this, he will provide a range of training courses using leading open-source software.
Job Titles:
- Advanced Imaging Specialist, University of Birmingham
Joao has joined Birmingham's COMPARE team in August 2021, taking up the post of Advanced Imaging Specialist. During his PhD and ensuing post-doctoral work in Reproductive Biology at the University of Birmingham, Joao applied a number of techniques around high-speed ratiometric imaging, cell tracking and laser-controlled photolysis to probe the detail of how olfactory receptor (GPCR) signalling controls sperm flagellar beat, cell motility and chemotaxis.
His expertise in microscopy and live-cell imaging was further enriched and expanded to other research contexts during subsequent post-doctoral work in cardiovascular sciences and infection, where he gained proficiency in a wider range of imaging techniques (confocal, light-sheet, structured illumination, super-resolution, single molecule, TIRF) whilst investigating platelet function and host-pathogen interactions.
Job Titles:
- Imaging Officer, ( Nottingham )
- Research Fellow in Advanced Microscopy
In April 2017, Joëlle Goulding was appointed as Research Fellow in Advanced Microscopy for COMPARE at the University of Nottingham. Joëlle completed her PhD in Nottingham in Genetics and following a postdoc studying adult stem cells in the cerebellum she joined the Cell Signalling Research Group headed by Prof Steve Hill. Within the group she has employed a number of imaging techniques and analysis strategies to study the pharmacology of Class A GPCRs. Most recently, Joëlle has worked on a collaborative BHF funded grant developing imaging techniques to study how polymorphic variants of the β2-adrenergic receptor can affect receptor function within stem cells and differentiated cell types.
Joëlle has a particular interest in imaging stem cells and methods of investigating endogenous levels of receptor expression. She will be continuing to develop research within fluorescence correlation spectroscopy alongside testing methodologies for the study of membrane receptors with the newly acquired Olympus LV200 and PhaseFocus Livecyte.
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Meri Canals did her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Barcelona, Spain and at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Her PhD was part of an EU-funded multidisciplinary project that examined the interactions between adenosine and dopamine receptors in Parkinson's Disease. During Meri's PhD, she obtained scholarships to visit the laboratories of Prof M Bouvier (pioneer in the application of BRET to GPCRs; Montreal, Canada) and Prof R Pepperkok (a leader in the development of FRET; EMBL, Germany). She completed postdoctoral training in a series of leading GPCR pharmacology groups. In the laboratory of Prof G Milligan in Glasgow, (2005-2008) her research focused on the functional consequences of GPCR co-expression and oligomerisation for which she developed novel RET techniques. As a senior post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Profs R Leurs and M Smit in Amsterdam (2008-2010) her research focused on the regulation, pharmacology and medicinal chemistry of chemokine receptors.
In 2010, Meri was awarded a Monash Fellowship to start her independent line of research within the Drug Discovery Biology Theme at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Melbourne, Australia. In 2017, Meri took a sabbatical year to work with her collaborators at the departments of surgery and pharmacology of Columbia University, New York. In October 2018, she moved to the University of Nottingham, to join the Centre of Membrane Protein and Receptors, (COMPARE) as Professor of Cellular Pharmacology at the School of Life Sciences.
Meri's research interests focus on understanding the interactions between G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) and intracellular proteins, and their consequences for receptor signalling and trafficking. In recent years her research has been focused on the study of receptors involved in pain transmission and modulation. In particular, work in Meri's laboratory is focused on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which opioid drugs elicit their physiological effects to guide the development of better and safer avenues for pain treatment.
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Board
- Collaboration Manager
Rebecca Lewis was appointed in 2015 as the Collaboration Manager for the Birmingham and Nottingham partnership. She is employed jointly by the two universities and spends part of the week in Birmingham and part of the week in Nottingham.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management and Administration Team
- COMPARE Administrator ( Birmingham ) ( Tue - Thur )
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Board
- Academic Lead
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Management Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Board
- Academic Lead
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Management Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the International Advisory Board