News

The AViDD Sponsored Collaboration with the NIH held a Retreat in San Francisco, Sept 2023

Virtual Virology has made a come back, Sept 2023

 

Following a four year pandemic hiatus where ‘Virtual Virology’ took on a much wider meaning, it has returned. Dr Lucy Thorne from Imperial College London hosted three early career PIs:

- Coding Biases and the Recognition of Non-self RNA

Daniel Goncalves Carneiro

- HTLV-1 and T cell tumours: a rare chance to study virus-driven cancer evolution in humans

Aileen Rowan

- Defining the cellular landscape of viral restriction using systems biology

Laura Martin-Sancho

Jolly and Towers labs had their Annual Summer Celebration BBQ, August 2023

Catching up with Collaborators Al Leslie and Henrik Kloverpris, May 2023

 

Cold Spting Harbor Retrovirus conference - Jolly and Towers labs attended, May 2023

It was great to be back in New York presenting at the Cold Spring Harbor Retrovirus Confernece"

AK Reuschl: Vpr regulates innate immune activation in resting memory T cells

Dejan Mesner: Cell-cell spread triggers a permissivity switch that enhances HIV infection in resting and activated T cells

Taylor Bronzovich: Vpr induction of a tissue-resident phenotype in resting T cells is a broadly conserved feature of lentiviruses

Ying Ying Tan: Vpx degradation of HUSH reveals a protective epigenetic gatekeeper mechanism

Lydia Newton: Synthetic PROTACs based on a depsipeptide macrocycle selectively degrade cyclophilin A and inhibit HIV-1

Maorong Xie: HIV-1 Vpr antagonises interferon by suppressing STAT nuclear transport

Matt Whelan has secured a 5 year Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellowship, May 2023

 

Congratulations to Matt Whelan in the Jolly lab who has been awarded a 5-year Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellowship to apply live-cell super-resolution imaging at scale to understand all things HIV and T cells. Well done Matt!

Dejan's paper: 'SARS-CoV-2 evolution influences GBP and IFITM sensitivity' is published in PNAS, Jan 2023

 

Our latest work on SARS-CoV-2 VOCs and spike targeting restriction factors, GBP and IFITM proteins, is out now in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences 2023. Check out how VOC evolution under different selective pressures has influenced sensitivity to antiviral restriction factors and innate immunity.

Clare and AK attended the 1st South African Workshop on SARS-CoV-2 Variants and Evolution, Nov 2022

 

Clare and AK went to South Africa to attend the '1st South African Workshop on SARS-CoV-2 Variants and Evolution' hosted by AHRI in St Lucia (SA). Clare presented 'SARS-CoV-2 VOCs are evolving enhanced innate immune evasion' and AK 'Evolution of enhanced innate antagonism is a recurring SARS-CoV-2 VOC feature and associated with dominance of Omicron lineage BA.5'

Pre-Conference Safari Shenanigans in South Africa, Nov 2022

NIH Funding for the Collaboration with the Krogan lab has been confirmed, July 2022

 

The Jolly and Towers labs are part of an NIH AViDD funded international collaboration. The goal of this collaboration is to produce potent inhibitors that act against SARS-CoV-2. It’s a huge collaboration involving many international laboratories and will cover everything from inhibitor design, library screening, and investigating structure activity relationships through to detailed studies of inhibitor mechanism.

Ann-Kathrin’s Vpr paper is published in Cell Reports, April 2022

Ann-Kathrin’s paper showing how HIV-1 uses its Vpr to reprogram resting T cells to adopt a tissue-resident like phenotype is out now in Cell Reports.

'Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2' is published in Nature, Dec 2021

Lucy and AK's work with Lorena and Mehdi Bouhaddou from the Krogen Lab on the enhanced evasion of the inante immune system by the Alpha varient when compared to the first wave strains is published in Nature.

Clare and Nevan spoke with Nature news about our recent Biorxiv paper on adaption of B1.1.7 to evade innate immunity, June 2021

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'Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 UK variant' is on BioRxiv and The New York Times has published an article on it, June 2021

Our latest paper demonstrating our work on how the Alpha variant evades early immune responses is on BioRxiv and it has attracted the attention of the New York Times.

Tafhima's paper 'HIV envelope tail truncation confers resistance to SERINC5 restriction' is out in PNAS, May 2021

ABC News joined AK and Lucy as they met with Lorena and the rest of our American collaborators on Teams, March 2021

 ABC news joined the experiment planning with our latest COVID collaboration with the Krogan lab at UCSF

HIV-1 Vpr drives a tissue residency-like phenotype during selective infection of resting memory T cells is out on BioRxiv! Jan 2021

 

 'Host-directed therapies against early-lineage SARS-CoV-2 retain efficacy against B.1.1.7 variant published' on BioRxiv, Jan 2021

The first study of the full-length B.1.1.7 variant virus, we find two host-directed drugs to possess similar antiviral activity against both the early-lineage SARS-CoV-2 and the B.1.1.7 variant. Read the results of AK, Lucy and Lorena's long hours and hard work alongside the Krogan lab at UCSF.

AK, Lucy, Lorena and Matt's paper is published on the BioRxiv preprint server, Dec 2020 

All the hours and hard work in the cat3 lab have paid off. AK, Lucy, Lorena, and Matt's paper is published on the BioRxiv server. SARS-CoV-2 sensing by RIG-I and MDA5 links epithelial infection to macrophage inflammation.

Our collaborative work is publlished in Leukemia, March 2020

Read about a new study we have been involved with in collaboration with clinicians at UCLH and colleagues in Infection and Immunity:

'SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses in patients with aggressive haematological malignancies' Jenny O'Nions, Luke Muir, Jiexin Zheng, Chloe Rees-Spear, Annachiara Rosa, Christopher Earl, Peter Cherepanov, Rajeev Gupta, Asim Khwaja, Clare Jolly, Laura E McCoy

 

The Jolly lab has re-opened for SARS-CoV-2 work, April 2020

 

 

We are working closely with the Towers, Selwood and Noursadeghi labs (UCL) to address the following questions:
 
·         How does the virus trigger innate and proinflammatory responses across different cell types in vitro?
·         Which pathways lead to proinflammatory cytokine secretion and cell death, as observed in severe COVID-19 patients?
·         How do the responses observed in vitro compare to those seen in vivo?
·         How do the innate responses influence immune crosstalk and T cell functions associated with immunopathology in severe COVID-19 patients?
·         Can we identify specific pathways and inhibitors to modulate innate and immune crosstalk to reduce pro-inflammatory responses and cell death?
·         Which viral proteins activate or antagonise innate responses?
·         Which restriction factors target SARS-CoV-2 and do these contribute to innate immune signalling?
 
We have been busy supporting the work of other groups at UCL by getting our CL3 labs operational for SARS-CoV-2, and training and supervising new users:

Dejan's paper is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 2020

Mesner D, Hotter D, Kirchhoff F, Jolly C. Loss of Nef-mediated CD3 down-regulation in the HIV-1 lineage increases viral infectivity and spread. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Mar 31;117(13):7382-7391. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1921135117. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

Clare presented at the 1st Max Planck Society Workshop on HIV Reservoirs and Evolution in St Lucia, South Africa. January 2019

Clare presented on 'Cell - Cell spread of HIV-1' and rounded the conference off with a safari with Greg, Ravi, and Laura.

Infection and Immunity's Christmas Party, December 2018

Infection and Immunity celebrated Christmas at the Lexington

 

Jolly Lab Retreat in Amsterdam with the Towers Lab, December 2018

A great week of productive science, discussion, team building and expanding horizons.

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To view the gallery of our adventure go the the Towers retreat 2018 gallery.

We attended the Frontiers of Retrovirology conference in Leuven, Belgium, September 2018.

The Jolly lab went to the Frontiers of Retrovirology conference in Leuven, Belgium where some of the lab presented their recent work.

 

Jolly Lab win at the Feathers pub quiz, 2018                                             

Microbiology Society Conference, 2018                                                        

The Jolly lab presented at the annual Microbiology Society Conference.

Infection and Immunity divisional Christmas Party, December 2017

Christmas celebrations with the Towers lab at 'Watch Me', December 2017

The annual Chriatmas curry.

WOHL Christmas Dinner, December 2017                                        

You can never have too many Christmas celebrations!

Halloween celebrations with the Towers lab, October 2017                              

Halloween dressing up - a character that shares your initails......

Towers lab picnic in Regent's Park, August 2017

Bathed in Sunshine. The Towers lab summer picnic in Regent's park.

Our Latest Paper is Published in Cell Reports, 2017.

The Jolly lab has had their paper “HIV-1 activates T cell signaling independently of antigen to drive viral spread” published in Cell Reports.

 

Infection and Immunity Christmas Party, December 2016

Looking good at Infection and Immunity's Christmas party.

 

WOHL Christmas dinner, 2016

Dr Shimona Stirling leaves the Jolly lab, 2016

Shimona has left the Jolly lab to take up an editorial post at Nature.

 

Towers lab picnic in Regents Park, August 2016

Another year, another picnic in the sun in Regent's Park. The Jolly lab were well represented in the football.

 

Two generations of HIV scientists meet, 2016

Members of the Jolly lab with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi after the UCL Prize Lecture for Clinical Science 2016

Shimona Starling wins 1st prize at the Colloquium, 2015

Congratulations to our PhD student  Shimona Starling who won first prize in the poster competition at the 2015 UCL Division of Infection and Immunity PhD student Colloquium.

Clare Secures a further 5 years funding, 2015

Congratulations to Clare who has secured  a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for her work on "Virus-Host interactions regulating HIV-1 replication in T cells" funding her lab for a further 5 years.

Celebrations were held in the UCL Quad to congratulate Clare along with Dr Joe Grove, Prof Greg Towers and Dr Ravi Gupta who all secured Wellcome Trust grants.

Clare's Image on the cover of Journal of Virology, Jan 2015

Elisabetta Spent 6 weeks in Sierra Leone, Feb 2015

Elisabetta was seconded to Public Health England to be part of a team of scientists working in the Ebola diagnostic labs helping to end the outbreak in West Africa.

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