Francesca M. Spagnoli
Role: Group Leader, Professor of Regenerative Medicine
Francesca has recently moved to London to become a Group Leader at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King's College London. She has been the recipient of prestigious grants, including an ERC Starting grant, ERC Proof-of-Concept grant, and and Wellcome Trust Investigator award. More recently, she became the coordinator of a FET OpenEuropean consortium on bioengineering pancreatic tissue. She is also the Director of Wellcome Trust PhD Programme called ‘Advanced Therapies for Regenerative Medicine’.
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Georgina Goss
Role: Postdoc
I have joined the Spagnoli Lab as a postdoc to investigate mesenchyme heterogeneity and how this affects pancreas development to create an accurate ex-vivo pancreatic niche.
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Leila Hermosilla Andrivet
Role: PhD student
I have now joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab to pursue my PhD in pancreas development. My project focuses on the co-differentiation of endodermal and mesodermal cells towards pancreatic fates. I am particularly interested in investigating the crosstalk between these two lineages during development, with the aim of improving our understanding of organogenesis and contributing to regenerative strategies for the pancreas.
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Christopher Lee
Role: Postdoc (HFSP LT Fellowship)
I have joined Spagnoli Lab as a HFSP postdoctoral fellow to explore the intercellular crosstalk between immune cells and the developing pancreas.
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Siwanarta Ma
Role: Bioinformatician
As a Junior Bioinformatician at the Spagnoli Lab, I combine my background in wet lab research with computational analysis. My primary work involves developing and implementing pipelines to reconstruct cell lineages, specifically mapping the transition from stem cells to pancreatic progenitors using both in vitro data and in silico algorithms. I also build interactive dashboards that help the scientific community explore and interpret our lab's findings.
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Raquel A. Martinez Garcia de la Torre
Role: Postdoc (Ramon Areces fellowship)
I recently joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher, where I explore how the pancreatic microenvironment, particularly ECM proteins, influences cellular identity during development and disease, with a specific focus on diabetes.
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Anna Salowka
Role: PhD student
I’m a PhD student in Prof. Spagnoli lab. I completed my undergraduate degree in Molecular Genetics at Kings College London and I’m currently finishing my MRes course in Molecular Basis of Human disease at Imperial College London. Some of my favourite things to do outside science include dancing, cooking and baking.
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Karolina Stanczyk
Role: PhD student
My PhD is funded by the KCL MRC DTP and involved 3 rotations, after which I joined the Spagnoli lab. My PhD project investigates a hepatopancreatobiliary intermediate progenitor (IMP) cell population identified by the Spagnoli Lab. The IMPs are a multipotent progenitor subpopulation that contributes to the development of the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. I am specifically focusing on the hepatic descendants of the IMPs and will investigate whether they have any unique properties or functions compared to surrounding hepatic cells, both during homeostasis and during liver regeneration.
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Alejo Torres Cano
Role: Postdoc
I have joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab as a postdoc to study how the pancreatic microenvironment shapes cellular communication during pancreas development.
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Heather Wilson
Role: Research Assistant
Heather is a research assistant in the lab, working on direct reprogramming of human fibroblasts into pancreatic beta-like cells. She obtained a BSc in genetics and immunology from the Australian National University, where she subsequently worked on an ENU mutagenesis screen to identify novel mutations affecting gastrulation and organogenesis in mice.
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