The webinar is part of our dedicated Biochemistry Focus Early Career Researcher (ECR) series. During this session we will hear from three ECR members of the Society who will share their developments in the Immune System and Immunotherapies.

Speakers:

• Anna Bajur – ‘Modifying interaction between the actin cytocortex and plasma membrane shapes B cell activation, a new role of CD20’
• Daniel Goncalves-Carneiro - 'Delineation of optimal RNA targets for zinc finger antiviral protein enables conditionally attenuated virus design'
• Gaelle Hogrel - 'How can a superhelical structure be a cell killer? The case of a bacterial TIR immune effector'

Anna completed her PhD in developmental cell biology at the Max Planck institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. Currently, Anna is a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Dr Katelyn Spillane at King's College London investigating the role of mechanical forces in B cell activation with a special focus on the role of actin-dependent regulation of plasma membrane organisation.

Daniel obtained his PhD in 2017 from the University of Birmingham, UK, studying how measles virus invades human cells. Later, Daniel moved to the Rockefeller University, in New York, where he's been studying how viral RNA is recognised by the cell as foreign RNA. Daniel has been studying an antiviral protein called ZAP (zinc finger antiviral protein) that binds to CpG dinucleotides present in viral RNA and selectively targets this RNA for degradation. More recently, he has applied this knowledge to develop live-attenuated vaccines that are conditionally inhibited by the presence of ZAP.

Gaelle is a biochemist with various experiences in protein sciences, including DNA repair and protein quality control in Archaea. Now, her research projects are focused on bacterial immune defence systems as a post-doctoral researcher at St Andrews University.