DrTeresaThurston

Ines

Ines joined the group in Nov 2021 as a postdoc. During her PhD Ines worked on the NLRP3 inflammasome in macrophages under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Davis at the University of Manchester. Now she is really excited to understand more about the interaction of Salmonella with macrophages. 

Yizhou

Yizhou is our newest PhD student and joined the lab in 2021. He graduated from Zhejiang University, China with a BSc and then worked as a research assistant from one year on the virulence genes of pathogenic fungi. Now Yizhou has begun his graduate studies with us and is introducing some new pathogens to the Thurston group. 

Magda

Magda is an honorary Thurston lab member who works closely with our lab due to her interest in innate immunity. Actually a member of the Holden lab, also at the CMBI, she has twice the number of group meetings and twice the amount of advice. 

Cullum 

Cullum started an MRC-DTP PhD in 2020 having first worked in the Thurston Laboratory as a Research Technician since 2018. Before that, Cullum carried out a Masters at Imperial College London and also has experience in industry. His favourite technique is flow cytometry and he is using it to investigate host restriction factors.  

Ioanna 

Ioanna carried out her Mres project with Teresa in 2018 and luckily for us she decided to stay for her PhD. Ioanna obtained an MRC-DTP Studentship to carry out work on the modulation of host immunity by Salmonella. Ioanna is the labs western blot expert and can routinely be found running 10 at a time. 

Hazel

Hazel started her PhD in 2018 having complete her Masters at Imperial College London. She is working closely with the Rittinger Lab (Crick Institute) on the structural and functional characterisation of bacterial effector proteins. 

Project students

We routinely host project students as well as summer students.

Our latest student is Agnel who joined the laboratory in February 2022 on the Infection & Immunity BSc programme. Welcome Agnel! 

We are also hosting Alison. Alison is on the 1 3 PhD CDT BioDesign Eng programme and her project aims to engineer Salmonella for exploitation. 

The Lab in 2019: Teresa, Nur (Mres), Ioanna (PhD), Hazel (PhD), Beth (Bsc), Cullum (RA)

A selection of Recent Alumni

Jonty - summer student

Jonty, who is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, joined the group in 2021 for a summer project. He worked with Hazel and together they analysed the interaction of SteE with the host kinase GSK3. 

Dan - MRes

Dan was a MRes Bacterial Pathogenesis & Infection student who joined the lab for his first rotation projects in 2020-2021. Dan worked on analysing host immune responses and graduated with a distinction overall. Well done Dan! 

Kelly - MRes

Kelly joined us for her research project as part of her MRes in Immunology in 2020. She was disrupted by the pandemic but carried out a superb bioinformatic analysis under tricky times. 

BETH - Bsc

Beth joined the Thurston lab for her BSc Immunity and Infection project in spring 2019. She studied host interacting partners of the Salmonella effector SteE. Beth was awarded the “British Society for Immunology Prize” for the highest project mark and also won the Thomas Skurry Prize for the best overall performance in the BSc. Well done Beth! We now wish her luck with the rest of her doctoral studies. 

Enkai - bsc

Enkai joined us for his BSc in Biochemistry. He worked closely with Ioanna, studying point mutations of SteE and gained authorship on a publication for his work. After this, Enkai joined the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Infection MRes here at Imperial. 

Elliott - PhD

Elliott began his PhD in 2014 on the Wellcome Trust PhD programme. His project focused on the structural and functional characterisation of the GtgA family of Salmonella effector proteins, which once delivered into host cells, cleave and inhibit members of the NF-kB transcription family. In 2019, Elliott began a position in the MRC funded technology transfer office called LifeArc. 

Regina - PhD

Regina joined the laboratory of Prof Holden from Germany to undertake her PhD in 2013. However, she was quickly poached by Teresa and together they explored how the SseK family of N-acetyl glucosamine transferases inhibit host cell death and NF-kB activation during macrophage infection. Following a short post-doc in the Thurston laboratory, Regina now works at Instruct Eric. 

Jingkun - BSc

Jingkun completed his BSc in Biochemistry at Imperial College London with first class honours in 2018. During his BSc final year, he worked on understanding the molecular mechanisms of macrophage deactivation induced by Salmonella Typhimurium. Jingkun was awarded the Gabriel Ferez Prize for the best final year project in Biochemistry or Biotechnology at Imperial College London. In September 2018, Jingkun joined the Francis Crick Institute as a PhD student in the laboratory of Dr. John Diffley. 

The Lab in 2018: Jingkun (Bsc), Elliott (PhD), Teresa, Regina (postdoc), Ioanna (Mres)