BRS Committee 2024/25

The committee are charged with the organisation of all BRS events for the following year. The committee is made up of postgraduate students from within the School of Biotechnology and its related institutes. The committee are essential in sustaining the BRS and delivering on the excellence achieved by previous years. Massive thanks are extended to those no longer on the committee.

Niall Ashfield

Chair

Niall is a final year PhD student in the Cancer Biotherapeutics Research Group under the supervision of Dr Denis Collins and Dr Amira Mahdi in University of Limerick. His work focuses on novel combinations of tyrosine kinase inhibitors and antibody-drug conjugates for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer; they have also been investigating models of acquired treatment resistance in HER2-positive breast cancer.

Natalija Aleksejenko

Treasurer

Natalija is a final year PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Janosch Heller, Prof. Phil Cummins and Dr. Keith Rochfort. Her research focuses on how astrocytes support the maintenance and formation of the blood-brain barrier through the release of extracellular vesicles. She is also investigating how this changes during inflammation.

Karina Kulakova

Social Media Officer

Karina is a 2nd year PhD student in the Translational Immunology group under the supervision of Dr. Achilleas Floudas. Her research involves looking into the interactions between macrophages and B cells in Inflammatory Arthritis diseases.

Roozbeh Sanaei

Social Media Officer

Roozbeh is a 2nd year PhD student in Translational Immunology under the supervision of Dr. Michael Freeley, Dr. Achilleas Floudas, and Dr. Paul Leonard. His project investigates the interactions between T cells and Stromal cells of the skin utilizing bioinformatic and in vitro approaches.

Larissa Bless

Ordinary Member

Larissa is a 2nd year PhD student in the LSI under supervision of Dr Neil Conlon. Her project is focussing on enhancement of target therapy for triple negative breast cancer patients by combining Antibody Drug Conjugates with DNA damaging agents.

Luna Stockmann

Ordinary Member

Luna is a 1st year PhD student in the LSI under supervision of Dr Neil Conlon. Her project focuses on enhancement of targeted therapies for ovarian cancer patients by combining Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) with DNA damaging agents.

Salini Mohapatra

Ordinary Member

Salini is a 2nd year PhD student in the Microbiology and Infection Biology group under the supervision of Dr. Linda Holland and Prof. Chirstine Loscher. She is working on role of lipoxins in combination with Antibiotics as a novel therapeutic for treating chronic wound infections.

Margherita Obinu

Ordinary Member

Margherita is a 2nd year PhD student working on a multi-disciplinary project that combines Cancer research and Neurobiology, under the supervision of Dr. Gary Lawrence, Dr. Alexander Eustace and Dr. Paul Buchanan. Her Project specifically focuses on the interplay between Cancer, Innervation and Pain related to this.

Panagiotis Sarametidis

Ordinary Member

Panos is a 3rd year PhD student working on pancreatic cancer. He studies the tumor microenvironment and its interactions with the immune system. He uses patient samples to form co-cultures with tumor organoids, fibroblasts and lymphocytes, and tests the effect of immunotherapeutic drugs on them.

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