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Dr Lauren Harrison has successfully defended her PhD Thesis, Dec 2019
Congratulations Lauren!
Dr Doug Fink successfully defends his PhD Thesis, Nov 2019
Congratulations Doug!
Vacancies are advertised with our Collaborators at University of New South Wales (UNSW), Oct 2019
Dr David Jaques, our collaborator at UNSW in Sydney is advertising for a cryoEM expert, a crystallographer, and a virologist. So if you fancy a stint in Aus in walking distance of the beach, click the links.
ChromaClade is live! Dr Chris Monit has released his Bioinformatics Software, Oct 2019
Chris has written ChromoClade, a software designed to visualise phylogenetic and sequence data combined in a clear and accessible way. Click through to give it a go!
Stephen is the latest of our PhD students to successfully defend his PhD Thesis! Oct 2019
Congratulations Stephen!
We waved good bye to our friends and lab buddies, The Gupta lab, October 2019
The Gupta lab have moved to Cambridge University! We wish them well.
With 4 PhD students graduating at the same time, it is time for a party! October 2019
Hataf, Stephen, Doug and Lauren have all written up and handed in!
John Walter's Latest Exhibition Opens at 'DCUK', September, 2019
'Brexit Gothic', John's latest exhibition has opened at DCUK in Peckham. DCUK is a hair salon that had the radical idea to dispense with mirrors and instead use the space to display art. Head over to enjoy John's art and maybe even indulge in a new hairdo while you are there!
Congratulations to Hataf on successfuly defending his PhD! August 2019
Congratulations Hataf!
The Towers lab attended the 44th annual meeting on Retroviruses at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, May 2019
Doug, Lorena and Becky presented: 'VPX Enhances DNA Sensing by cGAS/STING', 'Non-Pandemic HIV Capsids fail to Protect Viral DNA from DNA Sensors and Nucleases' and 'HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors Cause Formation of Defective Viral Particles that Activate cGAS Dependent Innate Immune Response' resepctively.
Lucy Attended the 6th ANRS HBV Cure Workshop in Paris, May 2019
The conference was held in a superb location right next to the Eiffel Tower. She was there to explore translating new ideas from HIV to HBV and to form new collaborations.
Congratulations to Che and Lucy who have been nominated in the UCLU student choice awards, May 2019
The Student Choice Awards are a way for students to thank an amazing member of staff, and let them know that their hard work makes a difference. Che has been nominated for 'Excellent research supervision' and Lucy for 'Brilliant research based education'
Lucy takes 'Outbreak!' to Ghana, May 2019
Lucy recently visited Accra, Ghana, to help colleagues from the University of Cambridge and NGO Vacation Initiatives in Science Africa (VISA) with their first public engagement event, initiated by Sabastine Arthur. Lucy trained the team in how to run the Outbreak activity she has developed, in which school children play the role of infectious disease scientists racing to investigate the cause of a mystery outbreak of disease that begins in their school and spreads nationwide. The students perform lab tests to discover the cause and they then have to plan how to contain the outbreak and hold a press conference to communicate their findings with the world's media. Lucy trained a team of infectious disease research scientists, medics and STEM student volunteers to work with the students, and they ran 4 sessions over two days, engaging over 120 children at a local secondary school. The team then carried on to run 4 more sessions in a village in Nkurakan in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
The Arts Council have aquired 17 works by Dr John Walter, April 2019
The works are from his project CAPSID, run in collaboration with the Towers lab and exhibited at 'HOME' in Manchester.
Our BSc students have finished their projects, April 2019
A fond fairwell to James, Caitlyn, Sophie and Dan, pictured here with their supervisors, who have finished and written up their projects.
EMBO Workshop 'Pathogen immunity and signalling' was held in Oxford, March 2019
The Towers lab was well represented with 5 posters and Becky presenting a flash talk: 'HIV-1 protease inhibitors drive formation of defective viral particles that activate a cGAS-dependent innate immune response.'
James Cai has won the the 2018 undergraduate bursary report prize from the Pathological Society, March 2019
Congratulations to James who, having secured a bursary from the Pathological Society for his summer project, has had his report judged the best research report of the 2018 undergraduate elective bursary reports
Che and Greg have won a Research Grant from the MRC, March 2019
The 3 year grant is to study 'Characterisation and therapeutic manipulation of Flaviviridae innate immune evasion'
Prof Marcelo Ehrilich visits from Tel Aviv University, March 2019
The Towers lab welcome Prof Marcelo Ehrlich with curry at Ragam.
The Towers Lab is feratured on the Wellcome facebook page 'The Power of Art and Science Collaboration'
The Wellcome Trust has written an article on Facebook 'The Power of Art and Science Collaboration' focusing on the work of Dr John Walter with the Towers lab.
Congratulations to Prof Ravi Gupta and his group on their collaborative paper documenting the second patient free of HIV following Stem-Cell Therapy, March 2019
Second patient free of HIV after stem-cell therapy: Gupta RK, Abdul-Jawad S, McCoy LE, Mok HP, Peppa D, Salgado M, Martinez-Picado J, Nijhuis M, Wensing AMJ, Lee H, Grant P, Nastouli E, Lambert J, Pace M, Salasc F, Monit C, Innes A, Muir L, Waters L, Frater J, Lever AML, Edwards SG, Gabriel IH, Olavarria E. HIV-1 remission following CCR5Δ32/Δ32 haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. Nature. 2019 Mar 5. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1027-4. [Epub ahead of print]
Prof Gupta presented the work at CROI 2019
The Associated Press video can be viewed here
Ravi Gupta's paper in Nature is reported across the world. Becky is seen here on Portuguese TV illustrating the work done on 'REMISSION OF THE VIRUS HIV: British patient is 18 months without sign of infection'
Greg presented at the 1st Max Planck Society Workshop on HIV Reservoirs and Evolution in St Lucia, South Africa. January 2019
Greg presented 'Can HIV-1(M) Gag facilitate pandemic transmission levels through adaptation to evade innate immune sensing?' at the 1st Max Planck Society Workshop on HIV Reservoirs and Evolution in St Lucia, South Africa. An awesome setting for world class science followed by safari with Ravi, Clare, and Laura.