Department of Life Sciences

Embracing the full breadth of modern life sciences activity

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Academic year 2020-21: Autumn term will begin on schedule and campuses will be reopened, as we prepare to offer a combination of in-person and online learning.

Madina Wane, MRes student and Rita Berkachy, PhD student, in conversation with Professor Murray Selkirk. Their work focuses on regulation of the immune system by helminth parasites, with the aim of developing new therapeutic approaches to infection and inflammatory disorders.

Saffi Hussain, Research Technician, with her supervisor Prof Erhard Hohenester, Professor of Structural Matrix Biology, Department of Life Sciences.

Congratulations to Professor Iain Colin Prentice on his election as one of the fifty 2018 Fellows of the Royal Society. Professor Prentice holds the AXA Chair in Biosphere and Climate Impacts at the Silwood Park campus.

Emem Udom, undergraduate student and Kathryn Charlwood, PhD student, working in the zebrafish lab. They are researching the impact of our Western style diet on inflammation and immunoregulation using zebrafish larvae.

Postgraduate Researcher in Molecular Biosciences, Gang Wu, supervised by Professor Anne Dell, is working to discover aberrant glycosylation in immune disorders, which will obtain a deeper understanding of immune disease and help people who are suffering from immune disorders.

Professor Pietro Spanu is Professor of Molecular Plant Pathology in the Department of Life Sciences. His work includes sequencing genomes of plant diseases to help understand the evolution of bacterial and fungal infections that can decimate crop yields.

Message from the Head of Department

The Department of Life Sciences stands in solidarity against the systemic racism against black people and shares the shock and distress of yet another black life horrifically taken because of the colour of their skin. We mourn this tragedy with you: Black Lives Matter.

Alongside our colleagues across departments, we have been identifying and dismantling structural barriers to allow more black people and other minority groups to enter and thrive in our world leading educational environment. This includes compiling large amounts of data over the last 18 months to prepare an application for the Race Equality Charter on behalf of Imperial College London. You can read more about this work on the our equality, diversity and inclusion website.

It is our responsibility to evaluate ourselves and our departmental practices daily for biases, prejudice and discrimination, be it overt or unconscious.

We are listening. So that we can take meaningful action, please share your experiences of racism and discrimination throughout your education and your career and suggest how we can make improvements via our DoLS Online Suggestion Box.

Professor Anne Dell CBE FRS FMedSci
Head of Department

Independent Research Fellowships in Life Sciences

Our programme for externally funded Independent Research Fellowships is designed to establish research leaders within a world-class research environment and with access to cutting-edge facilities. Independent Fellows will also benefit from:

Review and feedback of their application,
Mentorship during their fellowship and progress to an academic position,
Access to excellent postgraduate research students to support their work,
Joining a strong and active community of independent fellows across College.

We accept informal applications all year round; contact a member of academic staff directly regarding sponsorship or the Chair of the Fellowships and Honours Committee, Professor Steve Matthews.

Find out more about Independent Research Fellowships in Life Sciences >>