WHAT WE DO
We are a collaboratory network
We are the London Infection Network for ECRs, a multi-institutional platform that supports scientific and social exchange among young career researchers working on Infection Biology in London.
We organise events and create virtual spaces that help postdocs to:
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Foster knowledge and technical exchange.
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Increase collaborations.
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Present and expose their work to a bigger, like-minded critical audience.
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Expand networking opportunities.
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Promote and adverse opportunities for career development.
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Raise and discuss career related issues.
Mental health:
ECRs can experience high levels of stress and frustration (Wellcome report 2020), which can impact their personal health, research, and future career development. To make access to make access to mental health services more straightforward, we have put together a handout with information about mental health first aiders (MHFA) and other options available at the different institutions we represent, which can be downloaded HERE.
WHO WE ARE
LINE Committee
We are postdocs from various academic institutes in London working on infection biology (virus, bacteria, parasites).
FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE
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Jakson Luk
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Marion Delphin (current chair)
IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
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Julia Sánchez Garrido
BIRBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
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Natalie Al-Otaibi
LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE
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Dominik Brokatzky
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Ana Teresa López Jiménez
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
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Ann-Kathrin Reuschl
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Ziqi Zhou
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Oscar Torres
QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
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Josephine Nemegeer
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Jorn Stok
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
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Caroline Weight
MRC LABORATORY OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
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Felix Scharte
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
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Andrea Majstorovic
PAST MEMBERS:
Leo Swadling (UCL)
Margarida Castro-Gomes (LSHTM)
Tapoka Mkandawire (Francis Crick)
Valwynne Faulkner (Francis Crick)
Zoe Dyson (LSHTM)
Janina Muench (Francis Crick)
Marion Delphin (she/her)
The Francis Crick Institute
Marion Delphin completed her PhD under the direction of Dr. Julie Lucifora, in the HepVir team headed up by Dr. David Durantel (CIRI, Lyon - France) on the role of liver macrophages in the chronic infection by the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV). She is now undertaking a postdoctoral position in Prof. Philippa Matthews's team at the Francis Crick Institute, working on the impact of HBV sequence diversity on the immune system and subsequent liver diseases outcomes.
https://www.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/marion-delphin
@mariondelphin.bsky.social
Ann-Kathrin (AK) Reuschl (she/her)
University College London
As an infection immunologist, AK’s research focuses on understanding how pathogens and our immune system interact and affect each other. During her PhD at Imperial College London, she developed a research programme combining human ex vivo sampling with in vitro cell culture models to decipher the role of airway epithelial cells in the susceptibility to Mtb-infection. In her current role as a Research Associate in Prof Clare Jolly’s lab at UCL, she dissects native host-pathogen interactions between pandemic viruses and their target cells with a focus on HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.
Staff profile: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/57774-annkathrin-reuschl/about
Twitter: @akreuschl
@akreuschl.bsky.social
Julia Sanchez-Garrido (she/her)
Imperial College London
Julia did her PhD at Imperial College London, under Dr. Avinash Shenoy in the dept of Infectious Diseases. During her PhD she studied the role of caspase substrates in caspase-mediated signalling cascades, focussing on caspase-1, mainly linked to inflammasome activation, and caspase-8, involved in tissue development, apoptosis and immunomodulation. Julia is now a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Life Sciences with Professor Gad Frankel, working on host-pathogen dynamics at the mucosal interface in two different in vivo models : Citrobacter rodentium in the gut and Klebsiella pneumoniae in the lung. C. rodentium is a natural mouse-adapted pathogen that causes colitis in a type III secretion injectisome dependent manner, while K. pneumoniae on the other hand relies on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and virulence factors such as its capsule to escape our defences and cause disease. Julia also is a departmental postdoc representative at Imperial, and really enjoys science outreach , both within the college and outside (e.g. https://www.nativescientists.org/ and going to schools to give short talks).
Staff profile: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/julia.sanchez-garrido08
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-s%C3%A1nchez-garrido-542a1366/
@juliasg.bsky.social
Dominik Brokatzky (he/him)
LSHTM (past)/Pasteur Institute
Dominik completed his PhD at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, where he investigated the role of mitochondria-induced programmed cell death in cell-autonomous defence against a broad range of pathogens. His research identified defence mechanisms that are commonly activated across diverse infections.
Following his doctoral studies, Dominik joined the Mostowy Lab at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as a postdoctoral researcher. There, he focused on the septin cytoskeleton and its role in immune signalling, with particular emphasis on pyroptosis and inflammation during Shigella infections.
In 2025, Dominik continued his scientific journey by joining the Institut Pasteur in Paris, further advancing his work in cellular microbiology and host-pathogen interactions.
email: dominik.brokatzky@pasteur.fr
Bluesky: dominibrokatzky.bsky.social
Jakson Luk (he/him)
The Francis Crick Institute
Jakson received his MPhil at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and later pursued his PhD at the Institut Pasteur, Paris. During his study at Institut Pasteur, he was a member of the Unité Dynamique des Interactions Hôte-Pathogène, under the supervision of Jost Enninga. His work focused on the development of multiplex fluorescent systems to study the different intracellular behaviours of Salmonella. In Fall 2020, Jakson defended his thesis and moved across the English Channel to join the Host-Pathogen Interactions in Tuberculosis Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute, London. Here, Jakson works on different interdisciplinary systems to understand the host-pathogen interactions in Tuberculosis, by applying his skillset ranging from molecular genetics to high-content imaging.
Profession website: https://scholars.croucher.org.hk/scholars/chak-hon-jakson-luk
@jaksonluk.bsky.social
X: @LukJakson https://twitter.com/LukJakson
Josephine Nemegeer (she/her)
Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Josephine obtained her PhD at the nucleic acid immunity lab under supervision of dr. Jonathan Maelfait and dr. Peter Vandenabeele in the Inflammation research center connected to Ghent University. Her work focussed on the activation mechanism of nucleic acid sensor ZBP1 during viral infection. Josephine is now working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Blizard institute (QMUL) under Dr. Pierre Maillard. The focus of her project is studying the role of RNA interference, and in particular Dicer, during viral infections. Her main interests are virology, innate immunity and confocal microscopy techniques.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephine-nemegeer-79a176165/
Oscar Enrique Torres Montaguth (he/him)
University College London
Oscar is a Research Fellow at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He received his PhD in Bioscience Engineering from KU Leuven in 2018 working on the characterisation of bacterial defence systems. In 2019, Oscar joined the Protein-DNA interactions unit at the University of Bristol where he focused on the development of NGS methods for the study and characterisation of prokaryotic endonucleases and methyltransferases. In 2022, he joined UCL and is currently working on the development and standardization of clinical metagenomics and viral genomics workflows.
Staff profile:https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/89050-oscar-enrique-torres-montaguth
Twitter:@oscart32
Jorn Stok (he/him)
Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Jorn received his PhD from Leiden University, the Netherlands under the supervision of Dr Annemarthe van der Veen. During his PhD, he studied the role of the RIG-I-like receptor LGP2 in autoinflammation, and the proviral role of the small non-coding RNA family of vault RNAs in alpha- and picornaviral infection.
Jorn is now a postdoc in the lab of Helen Rowe at the Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London, researching innate immune sensing of LINE-1 elements in lung cancer. He has a special interest in innate immunity and RNA biology.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jorn-stok
Staff profile: https://helenrowelab.co.uk/people/
Andrea Majstorovic (she/her)
King’s College London
Andrea Majstorovic is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Infectious Diseases at King’s College London, where she investigates the regulators of the macrophage immune response during Salmonella infection.
She earned her PhD at Imperial College London, focusing on antibiotic tolerance and resistance of mycobacteria. She also completed an MRes in Bacterial Pathogenesis and Infection from Imperial College London, working with Dr Sophie Helaine and Dr David Holden, and holds a BSc/MSc in Biotechnology and Drug Discovery from the University of Rijeka, Croatia.
Her research interests include host-directed therapies, innate immunity to bacterial infections, and bacterial antibiotic persistence.
Staff profile: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/andrea-majstorovic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-majstorovic
X: @A_Majstorovic
Felix Scharte (he/him)
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
Felix obtained his PhD in Osnabrück, Germany, studying virulence factors of typhoidal Salmonella in the lab of Michael Hensel. He discovered flagella-mediated cytosolic motility of intracellular Salmonella Paratyphi A and investigated its role in evasion of cell-autonomous immune response. To dive deeper into this topic he joined the lab of Felix Randow at the MRC LMB in Cambridge as a Walter Benjamin Fellow of the German Research Foundation to study how guanylate-binding proteins (GBPs) attack cytosol-invading bacteria. He is using a whole genome CRISPR screening approach to identify candidates involved in processing and regulation of GBPs and bacteria-induced pyroptosis.
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/fscharte
Twitter: @Scha_Fe
Ana Teresa López Jiménez (she/her)
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Ana Teresa López Jiménez is a cellular microbiologist with a passion for microscopy.
She obtained her PhD at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) under the supervision of Prof. Thierry Soldati, working on mechanisms of membrane damage and repair during infection.
She joined the lab of Prof. Serge Mostowy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine supported by a SNSF Early.Postdoc Mobility fellowship and a Marie Skolowdoska Curie fellowship. Here, Ana works to develop innovative biochemical and microscopy approaches to study Shigella flexneri infection.
Ana led the original efforts to found the London Infection Postdoc Network and acted as President for 2 years (2021-2023).
@ATLopezJimenez
@atlopezjimenez.bsky.social
Ziqi Zhou
University College London
Ziqi Zhou did her PhD training with Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong. Her PhD research focused on unravelling a fascinating mystery: Why were there no reported cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in humans in Africa? To shed light on it, she genetically and phenotypically characterized camel MERS-CoVs obtained by African surveillance studies, in comparison with those infecting humans in the Arabian Peninsula. Now she continues her virology journey on coronaviruses as a Postdoc in Greg Towers’s lab in UCL. She's thrilled to explore how virus-host response of coronaviruses impact their ability to cause pandemic and pathogenicity in humans.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ziqi-zhou-6210a1100/
Twitter: @ZiqiZhou13
Natalie Al-Otaibi (she/her)
Birkbeck, University of London
Natalie Al-Otaibi completed her PhD with Dr. Julien Bergeron at the University of Sheffield in structural biology, namely cryo-EM of bacterial flagella and moved along with Dr. Bergeron to King’s College London to expand on this topic as a postdoctoral researcher. She is now on her second post doctoral researcher role at the lab of Professor Gabriel Waksman at Birkbeck, studying the structure and functionality of the Type IV secretion system in E.coli. Her fields of interest include cryo-EM, structure and function of bacterial macromolecular structures and antibiotic resistance mechanisms involving the Type IV secretion system.
Staff profile: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/#overview
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-al-otaibi/
Twitter/X: @Natalie_Otaibi
Caroline Weight (she/her)
Lancaster University
Caroline received her PhD from the Institute of Food Research and the University of East Anglia working on the infection mechanisms of Toxoplasma gondii in the small intestine. She undertook her first postdoctoral position at Emory University, Atlanta USA investigating tight junction protein signalling in the context of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Following on, she translated her signalling work experience to T cell biology at Lund University in Sweden, under sponsorship from the Wenner Gren Foundation. Caroline was a Senior Research Fellow in Prof. Heyderman’s lab at UCL from 2015-2023 where her research focussed on the control of colonisation of Streptococcus pneumoniae by the human nasopharyngeal epithelium. Caroline is now an independent group leader and Lecturer in Biomedical and Life Sciences at Lancaster University. Her lab contributes towards the development of technological advancements to the field of respiratory infection in humans.
Staff profile: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/health-and-medicine/about-us/people/caroline-weight
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-weight-955844189
Twitter/X: @weightcaroline
