December 2022
Ana is 'upgraded' - Matt is not.
Congratulations to Ana who has passed her upgrade viva and is now full steam ahead towards her PhD. However, Matt was not upgraded on his flight to Germany where he is off to Erlangen following an invite from Marco Thomas to give a seminar on our vaccine work. I do like the German christmas markets though!
November 2022
KFC? in a pub? Madness
The winter months can seem long but news of a KFC pub has sent the lab into meltdown.
Valhalla exists!
October 2022
Another 'lab' baby and welcome to Yashgin
Congratulations to Calum and his wife, Alice, on their new arrival Jasper - We haven't got a picture up but just imagine Calum but smaller! (very similar hairstyle).
Yashgin joins us a visiting researcher who is just completing her PhD studies in Iran and is going to take advantage of our Biobank cohort of transplant patient PBMCs to look at immune cell identity and function. Lots of time in the flow cytometry is planned!
September 2022
Calum departs for Cambridge
Another Post Doc moving on now is Calum - who is joining new spin out immunology biotech company Epitopea. Calum, like Matt, will be greatly missed. Not least by the PhD students who were supported so well by both of them. Good luck, Calum (and write the papers up!).
August 2022
Ten Pin Bowling action
Despite leaving months ago, Matt M will finally be departing for Denmark. So to wish him well and also to acknowledge the work of the MSc students at the same time it was time to throw down the gauntlet in the bowling alley. Calum came out on top - through no finesse but just brute force!
July 2022
IHW time!
It's IHW time of year but again online. Matt R gave an invited talk in the epigenetic session and took the opportunity to provide a bonus latency talk. Win win for the herpes virus community who all love latency of course! Calum also gave another excellent talk about tissue resident immunity - now just needs to get it published. Thanks to Anna Cliffe, Nat Moorman and Paul Lieberman for organising. It's in person next year so see you in Montana!
June 2022
4 years is up!
Matt R signed off his final year as external examiner for the immunology programme at Kings. It was actually a rewarding experience and hopefully Matt R didnt annoy the staff at Kings too much!
Matt R talking at UCL Microbiology domain
Thanks to UCL Microbiology Domain for organising a fun evening. 10 speakers 5 minutes and 3 slides max (or none in Matt's case). Great to meet the diverse Micro community at UCL with fascinating conversations covering all aspects from architectural impact on the microbiome to the ethics of drug discovery.
Microbiology | UCL Research Domains - UCL – University College London
May 2022
Matt M is leaving!
It's the end of a mini-era! Matt M is moving onto pastures new after 7 years of HCMV. He's a got post doctoral position with Niels Mailand and will move into big screen proteomics to study viral subversion of cellular functions. He will be missed in the lab (partly because he knows where everything is) but we wish him and his partner, Liane (another Reeves lab alumnus) all the best in Copenhagen.
April 2022
International CMV meeting, Cambridge (virtual)
Technically Matt R was there in person since he lives in Cambridge but this was virtual CMV. Some great overview talks and original science made for a excellent week. One day we will be back in person!
Microbiology Society Annual Conference, Belfast
A scientific meeting in person! Yes its the SGM (old money) and it was a really great time. Great talks from Matt, Becky & Calum and then also congrats to Paul Griffiths for his Colworth Prize lecture awarded for outstanding contributions to translational medicine. Keeps HCMV at the forefront of everyone's minds
What do you call a group of Masters Students?
Uh-oh. We have 4 students joining the lab this year. Welcome Aisha, Dionas, Mahrukh and Sara who will work on projects spanning molecular biology of latency through to the immune response against BK virus. Diversity is the spice of life!
March 2022
Matt R and Becky involved with School Visit to UCL
Colleagues at UCL organised a visit to UCL for school children to convince them that they can apply to UCL if they want to. This event was a chance for the students to meet an old man (Matt R) and vibrant young PhD student (Becky) along with other UCL colleagues to hopefully demystify UCL and university for people who traditionally may not apply. A blog of the event can be found here.
https://copewellstudy.com/2022/03/16/workshop-1-bonding-in-bloomsbury/
Matt R 'virtually' in Denmark
Thanks to Jannick Prenthoe (Copenhagen) for hosting me virtually for a talk on HCMV entry and vaccines. Always a pleasure to remind other virologists how important HCMV is!
February 2022
New paper
Congrats to Matt M and colleagues Hannah Rafferty & Paul Griffiths on the acceptance of their paper concerning the role of circadian rhythms and HCMV disease in transplant patients. You can read all about it in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.