Leadership & Supervisors
The programme provides an interdisciplinary training. PhD supervisors have been selected across departments from King’s campuses, for their expertise in core areas of relevance to regaenerative medicine, including cell transplantation, gene therapy and endogenous tissue repair.
Supervisors also have expertise in stem cell and developmental biology and knowledge of bioengineering, disease modelling, drug screens and cell tracking in patients.
Collectively, the supervisors provide knowledge in diseases of unmet clinical need, in innate and adaptive immunity, in organ transplantation and clinical trials of cell and gene therapies.
Supervisors also have scientific expertise in relevant models of endogenous tissue repair, and knowledge of bioengineering, disease modelling, drug screens and cell tracking in patients.
Programme Director
PROFESSOR FRANCESCA SPAGNOLI
Professor Spagnoli has supervised more than ten PhD students. With a particular research focus on factors that specify the beta cells of the pancreas she is a:
Group Leader and Professor at the Centre for Gene Therapy & Regenerative Medicine (CGTRM), Kings College London
Leader of the H2020 EU FET-Open Pan3DP Consortium on pancreas bioengineering
Adjoint Faculty Member, The Rockefeller University, USA
Programme Deputy Director
PROFESSOR STEVEN SACKS
Professor Sacks has supervised over 30 projects on innate immunity and transplantation, and is:
Director of the MRC Centre for Transplantation, Kings College London
Emeritus Senior Investigator of National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
Leader of Transplant theme of NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust and King’s College London
Co-leader of Complement UK
Programme Manager
DR FAY MINTY
After being awarded her PhD from the University of Glasgow/CRUK Beatson Laboratories, Scotland in 2007, Dr Minty completed a short postdoctoral position in the Harvard Skin Disease Research Center, Boston, MA, USA.
Following a career break, she joined the Centre for Gene Therapy & Regenerative Medicine (CGTRM) in 2015 to manage the Cell Therapies and Regenerative Medicine Wellcome Trust PhD Programme which is now the Advanced Therapies for Regenerative Medicine Wellcome Trust PhD Programme in addition to other roles at King’s College London.
SUPERVISOR POOL
Dr Niwa Ali
Area of interest: Immune cell stem cell interactions regulating tissue homeostasis.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Robin Ali
Area of interest: Development of gene and cell therapy for the treatment of retinal disorders.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Cynthia Andoniadou
Area of interest: Regulation of cell division and fate choices in mouse pituitary.
See more: Andonidou Lab I ORCID profile
Dr Patricia Barral
Area of interest: Cellular mechanisms that initiate and shape immune responses.
See more: Barral Research Group I ORCID profile
Professor Benedikt Berninger
Area of interest: Engineering neurogenesis for brain repair: lineage reprogramming of glia into neurons - from molecular mechanisms to functional neural circuit integration .
See more: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology profile I ORCID profile
Professor Juan Burrone
Area of interest: Studying neuronal plasticity and synapse formation in building neuronal circuits.
See more: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology profile I ORCID profile
Dr Ciro Chiappini
Area of interest: Nanomaterials for microscale-targeted gene delivery to engineer organotypic cultures.
See more: Chiappini Lab I ORCID profile
Dr Davide Danovi
Area of interest: Characterisation of induced pluripotent stem cells using high content analysis
See more: King’s Profile I ORCID profile
Professor Anil Dhawan
Area of interest: The effects of mesenchymal stromal cells on hepatocytes and extracellular vesicles.
See more: Dhawan Lab I ORCID profile
Professor Georgina M Ellison
Area of interest: Tissue-specific stem cells in the homeostasis and regeneration of striated (skeletal and cardiac) muscle.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Farzin Farzaneh
Area of interest: Immune therapy of cancer and functional analysis of the genome.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Norah Fogarty
Area of interest: Gene correction of human embryos; human trophectoderm lineage commitment.
See more: ORCID profile
Dr Eileen Gentleman
Area of interest: Stem cell-biomaterial interactions in 3D, cell mechanosensing, and osteochondral tissue engineering.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Mauro Giacca
Area of interest: Coding and non-coding RNAs for cardiac regeneration.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Corinne Houart
Area of interest: Cellular, molecular and morphogenetic mechanisms required to build the vertebrate forebrain, with a special interest for early development
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Ivo Lieberam
Area of interest: Pluripotent stem cells use in neural disease modelling.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Magnus Lynch
Area of interest: Single cell genetic and epigenetic profiling in skin cancer.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr John Maher
Area of interest: Adoptive immunotherapy using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T-cells.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Eugene Makeyev
Area of interest: Post-transcriptional control of gene expression in developing brain.
See more: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology profile I ORCID profile
Professor Michael Malim
Area of interest: Using natural variation in iPSC collections to define regulatory networks controlling HIV-1 replication and disease.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Oscar Marin
Area of interest: Mechanisms underlying specification of cortical interneurons and applications to cell therapy in the nervous system.
See more: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology profile I ORCID profile
Professor John McGrath
Area of interest: Gene and cell-based correction of human skin blistering disorders.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile [Coming Soon]
Professor Bijan Modarai
Area of interest: Developing novel angiogenic cell therapies for patients with critical limb ischaemia.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Joana Neves
Area of interest: Gut interactions – immune, epithelial, microbial and neural.
See more: Neves Lab I ORCID profile
Dr Rachael Pearson
Area of interest: Developing cell-based regenerative therapies for blinding diseases; retinal development, disease and treatment.
See more: ORCID profile
Professor Beatriz Rico
Area of interest: Cell therapies for the treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders.
See more: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology profile I ORCID profile
Professor Jody Rosenblatt
Area of interest: Biomechanical regulation of epithelial cell extrusion and its roles in asthma and cancer invasion.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Steve Sacks
Area of interest: Impact of the primitive set of defensive proteins making up the complement system on cell therapy.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Rocio Sancho
Area of interest: Pancreatic cell plasticity and regeneration.
See more: Sancho Lab I ORCID profile
Dr Mahesh Sangrithi
Area of interest: Mammalian germ line development and infertility.
See more: Sangrithi Lab I ORCID profile
Dr Francesca Spagnoli
Area of interest: Mechanisms regulating pancreatic cell identities: from organ development to tissue engineering.
See more: Spagnoli Lab I ORCID profile
Professor Andrea Streit
Area of interest: Cell identity in the sensory nervous system: from development to disease models and regeneration.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Abigail Tucker
Area of interest: Development, repair and regeneration of the head (focus on ear, jaws, cranial glands and teeth).
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Dr Alessandra Vigilante
Area of interest: Investigating rare genetic diseases integrating population genomic data and electronic health records.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile
Professor Fiona Watt
Area of interest: Adult mammalian skin homeostasis.
See more: Wattlab I ORCID profile
Professor Peter S Zammit
Area of interest: Transcriptional and signalling control of muscle stem cells in healthy and diseased skeletal muscle.
See more: King’s profile I ORCID profile