Justin’s track record as a clinician scientist has led to more than 650 peer-reviewed papers, more than 50 of which have appeared in journals with an impact factor exceeding 10, the vast majority as first or last author (current H-score on Google Scholar = 84).

He originally studied medicine at Trinity College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree before moving to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA then returning to complete training at the Royal Marsden and St Barts Hospitals. In 2007 he was appointed a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London and a Consultant Oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, then a Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology in 2009 (he is now a Visiting Professor there).

The nature of Justin’s scientific contributions and international leadership in translational research were recognised by being awarded the NIHR’s first research translational professorship, becoming Editor-in-Chief of Oncogene – Springer Nature’s cancer journal – and elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

He was also Chair of the Irish Cancer Society and a national charity, Action Against Cancer, was set up to support his research.

I completed a BSc in Biology, as an undergraduate student I explored the effect of antifungal drug combinations on biofilm formation of Candida parapsilosis. I completed an MSc in Molecular Biology at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, where I examined the role of protein dynamics in synaptic plasticity and learned basic molecular biology methods.

I wanted to gain extensive knowledge in neuroscience and understand the process of memory formation; therefore, I applied for an Erasmus+ scholarship. As an exchange student in the joint laboratory of Prof Peter Somogyi and Dr Tim Viney in the Department of Pharmacology, Oxford, I investigated the distribution of pathological tau proteins in the brains of a mouse tauopathy model, and tested how these proteins affected spatial memory processes and in vivo neuronal activity. I also carried out collaborative research at the Institue of Experimental Medicine, Hungary, where I investigated neuronal subpopulations containing tau tangles in the human brain. As an Erasmus+ student, I learned several methods such as immunohistochemistry, electrophysiological recordings and labelling in awake mice, fluorescent and confocal microscopy, and performing behaviour studies. Besides, I gained theoretical knowledge in neuroanatomy, electrophysiology, and data analysis.

I am currently carrying out a DPhil funded by Alzheimer’s Society, UK.

My DPhil project investigates the role of the limbic thalamus in spatial memory and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most prevalent form of dementia. The hallmarks of AD are abnormally folded amyloid-beta and tau proteins. While the cerebral cortex remains a major focus of AD research, the role of the thalamus has received less attention. Evidence of its importance is highlighted by pathological tau inclusions in specific limbic nuclei of the thalamus. These proteins might disrupt thalamic neuronal activity, leading to cognitive deficits. My aim is to define human thalamic cell types that are most vulnerable in AD and relate these to in vivo neuronal activity of corresponding mouse cell types in order to make predictions about how these pathological changes affect cognitive processes. I am carrying out extracellular recordings and juxtacellular labelling in order to define thalamic neurons in behaving animals. To analyse pathological neurons, I am using fluorescent, confocal and electron microscopy.

I am a neuroscientist in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. My expertise is in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. My main research interests include understanding how memories are formed and updated in response to changing inputs from the body and environment, and establishing how to detect and slow down/prevent the degradation of memory pathways in relation to Alzheimer’s disease.

My research group investigates an area of the brain known as the thalamus in humans and rodents. The part of the thalamus we study is important for memory, cognition, and emotion, and it is affected early on in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. We define different types of brain cells by examining their molecular profiles, neuronal activity, and connectivity with other brain cells.

I previously worked on the basal forebrain and the hippocampus, brain regions important for memory. These areas contain cells that are rhythmically active. Brain rhythms support memory by helping to coordinate activity within and across different areas of the brain.

Before moving to Oxford I carried out my PhD at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, where I investigated neural circuits of the mammilian retina.

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden and my research aims to characterise immune responses to virus infections in multiple sclerosis, and how these may influence disease development or progression. Our team’s work investigates how adaptive immune responses to common viruses or autoantigens can damage the central nervous system in neurological autoimmune diseases. By using a variety of molecular and immunological techniques, we aim to characterise autoreactive responses in depth, with the aim to provide better understanding of how disease occurs and ultimately provide targets for development of future therapies.

Annette Regan is an epidemiologist with a special interest in vaccines, maternal health, and pregnancy. She completed an MPH in epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University in 2006, and a PhD in infectious diseases at the University of Western Australia in 2016. Her PhD work focused on the uptake, safety and effectiveness of influenza vaccination during pregnancy in Western Australia and included a large data linkage component, and she has continued interest in the application of linked data for maternal and child health epidemiology, burden of disease, public health surveillance, and cohort studies.

She has previously worked as an epidemiologist for state and federal public health agencies, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During her time at CDC, she coordinated national surveillance activities and had the opportunity to serve in emergency response operations, including the response to the 2009 influenza A/H1N1 pandemic. After leaving CDC in 2011, she spent seven years living in Australia working for the state health department in Western Australia. During her time there, she implemented several communicable disease prevention and surveillance programs, including the development of novel surveillance tools for monitoring emerging infectious disease threats such as Ebola virus.

Since returning to the US in 2018, she has been faculty at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, where she lectured on epidemiologic methods, infectious disease epidemiology, and reproductive health. She recently joined the faculty of University of San Francisco. Over the course of her career, she has mentored and supervised undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students as well as postdoctoral research fellows.

In addition to her public health and teaching experience, Dr. Regan has an active research portfolio in maternal health and immunization and continues to collaborate internationally with researchers in Australia, Norway, Canada, and across the US. She has published >100 peer-reviewed papers in public health and medical journals, including the Lancet, Lancet Global Health, Lancet Infectious Diseases, American Journal of Epidemiology, and the American Journal of Public Health. Her research has contributed to policy briefs and improvements in public health programs related to maternal and child health.

Emma Tinning is a health and public policy adviser. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne.

Marianne Tomlin is a Melbourne based Accredited Practising Dietitian, with extensive experience in childhood food allergies both in the UK and Australia. Marianne has a particular interest in feeding difficulties children with food allergies and has recently established an allergy specific feeding clinic at Monash Children’s Hospital where she has helped set up the new paediatric allergy clinic service. Marianne also works privately from Kids Nutrition Clinic and Offspring Health, and is an active member of the ASCIA Dietitians Group.

Out of work, Marianne is a keen cyclist and enjoys exploring Melbourne with her husband and two boys.

Associate Professor David Scott is an exercise scientist who completed a PhD on lifestyle factors associated with skeletal muscle mass and function in older people at the University of Tasmania in 2010. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science from 2012-15, and a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University from 2015 to 2020, where he led the Sarcopenia, Obesity and Lifestyle Laboratory within the Bone and Muscle Research Group. He joined Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition in 2020. He is the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Sarcopenia and Frailty Research’s Sarcopenia Diagnosis and Management Task Force and a member of the International Osteoporosis Foundation’s Committee of Scientific Advisors.

The adaptive immune system depends on the vast proliferation of anti-pathogen lymphocytes. In order to proliferate in this way, lymphocytes have to maintain their replicative capacity in the face of anti-proliferative signals delivered by inflammation. My prior work has studied how the signal for terminal differentiation in these cells could be linked to the magnitude of their proliferation.

My current focus is the study of how responding adaptive immune lymphocytes avoid the anti-proliferative signals of inflammation. This work has received substantial support from the MRC and hopes to identify new pathways for the therapeutic manipulation of immune responses. These scientific objectives stem directly from my clinical work, based at Addenbrooke’s hospital, where I look after patients with primary and secondary immunodeficiency. An ongoing research priority within our clinical department is the identification of novel immunodeficiencies and therapies.

My team studies the molecular and physiological pathways involved in the regulation of human appetite and body weight and their disruption in obesity. Some of the molecular pathways involved in regulating weight also regulate blood pressure and lipid metabolism, and affect an individual’s risk of cardiovascular diseases.

One of the links between obesity and cardiovascular disease is leptin. We have identified mutations in leptin gene using candidate gene approach in patients with severe, early onset obesity, and have demonstrated that leptin contributes to hypertension in obese individuals. These results suggest that pharmacological approaches that modulate leptin’s effects on cells could represent a useful therapeutic strategy for the treatment of obesity-associated hypertension and might help prevent a subset of obesity-associated cardiovascular disease.

I am a Clinical Lecturer in Metabolic Medicine at the University of Cambridge. My research aims to understand the consequences of obesity on hormone regulation and immune function to improve treatment for people living with obesity.

Obesity leads to more frequent and severe infections, which became poignantly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, immune dysfunction in obesity is poorly understood and understudied. Treatment and clinical outcomes of (severe) infections in people with obesity may be improved by understanding the underlying processes that drive immune dysfunction.

BSc (hons/1st) in Biology (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece), MSc in cognitive neuroscience (Aston University, UK), and PhD in neuroimmunology (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK). Interested in the biology of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, and especially in how certain factors can push an inflamed brain towards neurological or psychiatric disorders. In the past I have investigated the changes of certain immune system biomarkers which are observed in patients with Multiple Sclerosis and Covid-19, while currently my focus has shifted to the immune basis of psychosis.