Our People

Karen is a Research Support Technician. She provides technical assistance for in vivo research and contribute to the in vitro research programme working within both a CL2 and CL3 laboratory setting.

Karen graduated from Glasgow Caledonian University in 1999 with a 2.1 BSc (hons) degree in Applied Biosciences and began her career as an Experimental Officer at Covance Laboratories in North Yorkshire, working within the Genetic and Molecular Toxicology Department.

Karen then moved to academia, working as a Research Support Technician for the Medical Research Council at the Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh. She researched spermatogonial stem cell transplantation as a possible treatment for infertility in male childhood cancer survivors.

As part of her Research Support role, helping to investigating oestrogen receptor dynamics in the human reproductive system, Karen was responsible for maintaining both primary and secondary cell lines, infecting cells with adenoviral and lentiviral constructs and performing both FRET and FRAP techniques using a meta-confocal microscope.

At the CVR, Karen provided research support to Professor Andrew Davison investigating correlations between Human Cytomegalovirus genome variation and pathogenesis. She was redeployed to the CRUSH group when the pandemic hit in 2020.

Karen has over 20 years of experience in the use of a variety of lab techniques including the use of small animal models in research. As a result, she has been able to provide technical support to both the in vivo and in vitro research work of the CRUSH group into the SARS-CoV-2 virus and will also be involved in monkeypox virus studies in the future.

In her current role, Agnieszka is managing day to day activities of CRUSH, and overseeing delivery of projects.

Agnieszka comes from Poland, where she studied for BSc and MSc in Biotechnology degrees at the University of Gdansk, Poland. She obtained her PhD at the University of St Andrews, UK studying viruses in mosquito models.

Experience of working with various pathogens, including RVFV, SFTSV, ZIKV, SEOV, SARS-CoV-2, in CL2 and CL3 laboratories.

Claire joined CRUSH towards the end of 2021 and is responsible for business development activates and external relationships with partners from industry and academic organisations.

Claire is an experienced Business Development Manager with over 10 years experience working in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. She has an MSci in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Organic Chemistry from The University of Glasgow.

Claire has experience in product management, business development, account management and product marketing in both academic and industrial environments.

Vanessa is an experimental pathologist within CRUSH. She performs pathology-related experiments and analysis.

Vanessa has a background in veterinary pathology.

How a virus infection shapes tissue-specific and systemic inflammation; Vanessa’s work focuses on how host-specific immune reactions contribute to a mild versus a severe clinical outcome and eventually to death.

Melanie provides administrative support for the CRUSH team.

Melanie has worked for the CVR since 2017 and is responsible for providing professional and confidential administrative support to all staff including research staff and postgraduate students within the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR).

Melanie has had many years’ experience working in customer focused organisations and administrative roles both in industry and academic environments.

Diogo is responsible for the design and development of new in vitro virus-based assays and for developing and testing our small animal models of infection and performing in vivo drug screenings on behalf of clients.

Diogo graduated in Biological Sciences in 2014 and completed his MScs and PhD in microbiology, focusing on Virology. His projects were related to understanding of different arboviruses, including DENV, ZIKV, YFV AND MAYV, as use of different compounds as possible antivirals in both in vivo and in vitro models.

Diogo has worked with different viruses and has developed antiviral assays for them through his career. Diogo’s main research focus is to use knowledge of virus characteristics and his main area of interest is using knowledge of virus characteristics and virus host interactions to screen, study and test different compounds that can have antiviral properties.

Leah is involved in the development of reverse genetic systems to generate recombinant viruses and establishing model systems to study high containment viruses.

Leah graduated with an MSci in Virology from the University of Glasgow and completed her PhD in Virology at the University of Cambridge. During this time, Leah worked on Human Cytomegalovirus, where she characterised protein degradation during infection and identified host proteins with novel antiviral activity.

Leah has experience with a range of viruses, cell culture-based assays and molecular biology techniques. During her PhD, Leah used proteomic techniques to study protein stability during infection and to investigate virus-host interactions.