People

Principal Investigator (Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow)

Shane studied for his PhD at the University of Leeds in 2006 and was then awarded a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship in 2007 to support postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Didier Stainier at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In 2011, Shane was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship and moved to the University of Manchester to establish his own laboratory. More recently, in 2020 Shane became a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow.

 

Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow

I carried out my PhD in the St Johnston lab in Cambridge and in 2016 I made the switch from flies to fish and joined the Herbert lab as a Postdoc. I am interested in how cells coordinate cell division with their primary function, such as cell migration or tissue morphogenesis. In particular I am investigating how mitosis is integrated into the process of collective cell migration during angiogenesis in zebrafish larvae.

 

British Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Researcher

Recently it became clear that angiogenesis and metabolism are tightly coupled mechanisms. Sprouting angiogenic cells display a “metabolic switch” marked by a reduction of oxidative phosphorylation and an increase glycolytic flux. My project focus on the transcriptional link coupling VEGF induced angiogenesis with this metabolic switch enabling an efficient blood vessel formation through the regulation of FOXO1, a transcriptional repressor of metabolism.

 

Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Researcher

I joined the Herbert lab as a Postdoc in October 2020 after studying for my MBiolSci undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Sheffield. I carried out my PhD in the Hettema lab and used the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to investigate organelle inheritance during asymmetric cell division. I am continuing my research interests in the Herbert lab and have made the leap from yeast to Zebrafish, using angiogenic tip cell migration as a model for asymmetric cell division. I am also using human endothelial cells and novel micropatterning assays to further investigate cellular and environmental factors that influence asymmetric cell division.

 

Wellcome Trust PhD student

I arrived in Manchester in 2016 after a Bachelor in Paris (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and a Master’s in Montréal, where I worked on DNA damage repair and senescence at the Montreal Cancer Institute. I started my Wellcome Trust funded PhD with three rotations, at the end of which I decided to join Shane’s lab. My project focuses on the asymmetric division that occurs during angiogenic tip cell migration. I am trying to identify the cellular and environmental cues that generate the asymmetry observed between the two daughter cells. To do so, I am using zebrafish embryos, as well as a novel micropatterning assays.

 

BBSRC PhD student

I began my PhD studentship in October 2017. My project is focused on investigating the role that messenger RNA localisation plays during cell migration, specifically in the context of angiogenesis. To begin to address this problem, we will be employing a variety of cutting edge in vitro and in vivo RNA visualisation tools. We also aim to characterise the functional consequences of impaired messenger RNA localisation on angiogenesis using a genetic approach. The model organism we use in the lab, the zebrafish, is an ideal system for this. I moved to Manchester to study for my BSc and MSc Degrees in Developmental Biology at the University of Manchester from 2013-2017. I liked it here so much I decided to stay for my PhD.

 

BBSRC PhD student

I started my PhD in the Herbert lab in September 2019, as part of the BBSRC doctoral training programme. My project aims to define the interaction between cell shape dynamics and the molecular networks orchestrating endothelial cell fate decisions during angiogenic sprouting.  In turn, this will allow me to investigate a potential role of cell shape dynamics as spatiotemporal modulators of angiogenesis. Cutting-edge in vivo molecular tools such as optogenetics and the CRISPR/Cas9 system will be used to achieve these aims, utilising the zebrafish vasculature as a model system.

 

Recent Alumni

2013-2019: Postdoc

2019-: Lecturer, Queen’s University Belfast,