Minerva Garcia – Research Assistant/PhD Student
My PhD aims to develop a novel method to investigate the interactions between epithelial cells, lung fibroblast and immune cells, and assess how different environmental stimuli contribute to tissue damage. After the completion of a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona, I moved to London to pursue my MSc in Immunology at Imperial College London and joined the NHLI. For my MSc thesis in the Harker lab, I investigated the effect of dendritic cells in T follicular helper cells dysregulation during early life.
Following my MSc, I worked for seven months as a Research Technician in the Johansson’s lab (Imperial College London), where we examined the type I interferon response in various COVID-19 mouse models. In 2022, I joined Professor Lloyd’s group as a Research Technician, where my work focused on investigating immune-neuro-stromal interactions in asthma, along with providing support for several ongoing projects. My growing interest in lung cell communication led to the development of a new project that focused on lung crosstalk in a 3D environment. In 2023, this project evolved into my PhD in Clinical Medicine Research.
Publications
Joulia R, Puttur F, Stölting H, Traves WJ, Entwistle LJ, Voitovich A, Garcia Martín M, Al-Sahaf M, Bonner K, Scotney E, Molyneaux PL, Hewitt RJ, Walker SA, Yates L, Saglani S, Lloyd CM. Mast cell activation disrupts interactions between endothelial cells and pericytes during early life allergic asthma. J Clin Invest. 2024 Mar 15;134(6):e173676. doi: 10.1172/JCI173676. PMID: 38487999; PMCID: PMC10940085.
Ogger P.P., Garcia Martín M., Michalaki C., Zhou J., Brown J. C., Du Y., Miah K. M., Habib O., Hyde S.C., Gill D. R., Barclay W. S., Johansson C. Type I interferon signaling deficiency results in dysregulated innate immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 in a mouse model. European Journal of Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1002/eji.202249913