People

Alvin completed an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry with a placement year, followed by a master’s in research at Cardiff University. He earned his PhD at the University of Bristol in 2023 under the supervision of Prof. Christiane Schaffitzel, focusing on an RNA quality control mechanism known as nonsense-mediated RNA decay. During his PhD, he undertook a professional internship at Immunocore Ltd., working on bispecific T-cell receptor therapies. After completing his PhD, Alvin pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Bristol in collaboration with QinetiQ on energetic materials, followed by a brief postdoctoral position at Newcastle University with Prof. Paul Race before joining the Sharp lab.

Asme was a Daphne Jackson Research Fellow working on developing an in-vitro model of the human subcutaneous tissue for testing drug bioavailability. 
Asme specialised in tissue engineering, drug delivery, in-vitro modelling and research translation.

Asme received her PhD in 2012 from the University of Nottingham on the development of an in-situ solidifying scaffold for bone tissue regeneration. Following this, She was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Portsmouth working on the development of nanoparticles as drug delivery tools across the blood-brain barrier. She then moved to industry to work as a Senior Formulation Scientist and then Head of Preclinical and Clinical development, working on the development of novel drugs for subcutaneous delivery.

Kasim completed a short postdoctoral research position with AstraZeneca’s Influenza vaccine group and previously completed his PhD at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.

Will previously completed his undergraduate at the University of Bristol.

Before coming to Bristol, Jan studied biochemistry at the University of Oxford, graduating with an MBiochem degree in 2024. During his rotation year on the Wellcome Trust Dynamic Molecular Cell Biology program, he completed placements in the Sharp, Cullen and Richardson labs. 

Before joining the EngBio CDT, Gil studied biological natural sciences at Cambridge, focusing on both the biology of disease and the capsizing of rowing boats. Gil is passionate about interdisciplinary research, with his master’s degree in systems biology providing both experimental and computational expertise. He previously worked with the Rayner lab at CIMR to validate high-throughput AI-driven analysis of the Plasmodium falciparum proteome, and with the Fusco lab at the Cavendish Laboratory to explore methods for the engineering and characterisation of mutant bacteriophage. Gil was drawn to engineering biology as a field that is driven by collaborative problem-solving and real-world applications. Since moving to Bristol, Gil has traded the river for the giddying heights of his local bouldering wall, and he’s looking forward to exploring the coast and countryside around the city.

Jasmine studied Cancer Biology and Immunology at the University of Bristol. Her final-year project focused on investigating the mechanism of action of 5-aminosalicyclic acid and its contribution to colorectal cancer prevention via NF-κB. Inspired by what she learned throughout her degree, she decided to pursue immunology at Master’s level and hopes to continue building a research-focused career in the future.

Judith is a specialist electron microscopy technician with expertise in both TEM and SEM at room temperature and cryo and applied to materials and the life sciences. This broad experience has been acquired by working both as a technical specialist for microscope equipment vendors and as a researcher in industry and academia as well as more recently as an EM Facility team member.

Leoni studied Microbiology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She performed her master’s thesis in the group of Univ. Prof. Dr. Susanne Zeilinger-Migsich, in Molecular Cell Biology of Filamentous Fungi. The main topic was to establish the bimolecular fluorescence complementation system (BiFC) to investigate on molecular interaction between a GPCR-like transmembrane receptor with two suspected downstream signalling partners in Trichoderma atroviride. In 2015 and 2016 Leoni performed an internship at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg at the Cancer Drug Development headed by Dr. Nikolas Gunkel and Dr. Aubry Miller. There she improved her knowledge about cell-culture and screening approaches.

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Starting in 2013 Sebastiaan studied Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology. During the course of his Bachelor and Master education his interests have driven him towards a specialization in biochemistry, drug-development and synthetic biology. He performed his master thesis in the Chemical Biology group of prof.dr.ir. Luc Brunsveld. Here his research was focused on exploiting the scaffold function of protein 14-3-3, to create protein clusters within bulk solutions, similar to the functioning of membranelles organelles. Additionally, he did an internship at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in the group of dr. Tom Robinson.

Mart studied Nanobiology at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and Delft University of Technology for his Bachelor’s degree, followed by a Master’s in Applied Physics with a specialization in Bionanoscience at Delft University of Technology. He performed his master thesis in the group of Cees Dekker, studying liquid-liquid phase separation within liposomes as a platform to construct synthetic cells. Besides this, he did internships at the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering in the lab of William Shih, as well as at Delmic, a company in Delft that designs devices for integrated correlative light and electron microscopy. Between his graduation and joining the Sharp lab he worked at Delmic as an experimental physicist, developing a system that integrates cryogenic light, electron, and ion microscopy.

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Göktuğ studied Life Science and Technology at TU Delft and Leiden University. He obtained his masters in Life Science and Technology at Leiden University where he did his internship in the group of Sander van Kasteren. Göktuğ combined the cytotoxic activity of cytokines with targeting properties of nanobodies to develop a new immunocytokine with reduced side effects, potentially to be used as anti-cancer drug. He started his PhD in 2021 in the CCB group at the LUMC supervised by Thom Sharp and Ferenc Scheeren.

Gabriella studied Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Cagliari, Italy. She performed her master’s thesis in the group of Dr. Dario Piano, in Plant Physiology and Photobiology. At that time, she mainly focused on the biochemical and biophysical characterization of membrane-associated vacuolar enzymes. In July 2021,  Gabriella obtained her PhD at the ETH Zurich. Under the supervision of Dr. Roger Benoit and Prof. Gebhard Schertler, she worked on the development of protein engineering strategies for structural studies of difficult targets. In particular, she focused on enabling single particle analysis (SPA, cryo-EM) of G protein-coupled receptors.

Roy has a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Science & Technology from Delft University and Technology and Leiden University and a Master’s degree in Chemistry from Leiden University, with a focus in Chemical Biology. During his masters, Roy performed several internships and projects. As a part of his master’s thesis in 2015, he developed light-activated angiogenic peptides for the use in embryonic zebrafish in the SBC group at Leiden University, focusing on organic and peptide synthesis. During this period, he was funded a NWO Top Sector Chemistry Student grant and spend several months working on dual directed liposomes for tumour treatment. In addition, Roy participated in the 2015 honours programme of the Netherlands Research School of Chemical Biology. In 2016, he worked on an enzymatic fluorescent labelling method in the bacterium C. Crescentus in the Tirrell lab at the California Institute of Technology, where he increased his knowledge in biochemistry, bacterial cell culture and protein chemistry. In 2017, Roy started his PhD in the SBC Group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, under his promotor Alexander Kros and co-promotor Thomas Sharp.

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Dylan studied Biochemistry for his undergraduate degree at The University of Bristol (2017). This involved two major research projects. The first for Oxitec, a Oxfordshire based biotech company who specialised in the genetic modification of insects for pest control. The second, in the lab of Professor Ian Collinson at the University of Bristol, where he helped develop a novel optical assay for measuring the rate of protein import/export across membranes. Subsequently, he worked in Professor Ian Collinson’s lab where he applied this optical assay and other techniques into interrogating the mechanism of action of the TIM23 transporter in the Mitochondrion (2018).

Maarten studied Applied Physics in Delft, with a focus on Biophysics and NanoBiology. He was involved in several research projects in the group of Cees Dekker regarding the behaviour of DNA in solid-state nanopores. During his master Maarten developed a novel fluorescent probe for Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) in the lab of Elio Abbondanzieri, in the Bionanoscience department in Delft. During an internship at the University of Edinburgh, he worked in the lab of Sander Granneman (Synthetic and Systems Biology Department) on a novel chemical method to probe the secondary and tertiary structure of RNA molecules in yeast cells.

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I studied Life Science and Technology at the Universiteit Leiden and Technische Universiteit Delft. During this time I did internships in both the Soft Matter Chemistry group of Prof. Dr. Alexander Kros on the synthesis of covalent hydrogel materials for applications in drug release and in the Molecular Biotechnology group of Prof. Dr. Gilles van Wezel, where I did research on the role of cytoskeleton proteins in cell division and the possible existence of kinesins in Streptomyces coelicolor. In 2013, I started my Ph.D. research under Prof. Dr. Alexander Kros and Dr. Roxanne Kieltyka at the Supramolecular and Biomaterials Chemistry group of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Universiteit Leiden. Here I did research on the design and synthesis of supramolecular polymer materials for biomedical applications and diagnostics. I am currently working as a post-doc in the Sharp lab to develop DNA nanotechnology-based Bio-nanopatterning strategies to understand and exploit the human innate immune system.

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Erik Bos studied biology at the University of Amsterdam (M.Sc. 1993). He was a student in the group of Wanderley the Souza at the State University of North Fluminense, Brazil until 1999, when he joined the technical staff of the Peter Peters group at the Netherlands Cancer institute, Amsterdam. In 2007 he joined the technical staff of the Bram Koster group at the LUMC, Leiden. In 2010 he was affiliated with the technical staff of the Laboratory of Biotechnology at INMETRO, Brazil.