Current Lab Members (2025)


2023 Lab Members

February 2025 : From Left to Right : Nadia Davis, Ruby White, Claire Ciancia, Rick Maizels, Li An Cowley, Anna Heawood, Luke Power and Marta Campillo Poveda (Anne Donachie not in photo)

Summer 2023 : Back Row : Nuttanan Hongsrichan, Marta Campillo Poveda, Ella Kancel, Marilyn Zumbado Salas, Kyle Cunningham; Front Row: Shashi Singh, Anna Sanders, Rick Maizels, Anne Donachie, Lewis Taylor, Ailidh McGonigle, Emma Ntang and (photoshopped) Ruby White

Rick Maizels

Principal Investigator

Rick Maizels

Professor of Parasitology at the University of Glasgow

Rick Maizels is Professor of Parasitology at  the University of Glasgow’s School of Infection and Immunity. He is interested in how and why parasites manipulate the sophisticated mammalian immune system, and how that system has evolved in the face of parasite immunomodulatory strategies. Rick moved to the University of Glasgow in 2016; between 1995 and 2015 he held the Chair of Zoology at the University of Edinburgh, and was previously Professor of Parasite Immunology at Imperial College London, where he moved in 1983. Prior to this, he held postdoctoral positions at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in London (1979-1983), as well as UCLA (1977-1979) and California Institute of Technology (1976-1977). He holds a BSc degree from University College London and gained his PhD in Immunology from the NIMR.

Anna Heawood

Postdoctoral Researcher

Anna is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow’s School of Infection and Immunity. Anna is interested in host-microbe interactions and mucosal immunology. Her work in the Maizels lab centres around the helminth TGM family of immunomodulatory proteins and their functional impact on immune and stromal cells in the gut. Previously, Anna completed both her BSc and PhD degrees at the University of Glasgow, finishing her PhD in 2024. Her PhD research focussed on understanding how the intestinal microbiome impacts immune responses and disease outcomes.

Arianna Raponi

Lab Manager and Technician

Arianna holds a PhD on Vaccine immunology in collaboration between University of Glasgow and GSK Vaccines srl Italy. For this project she generated and patented Nanoalum, a nano-metric version of Alum adjuvant and performed comparison studies. Her favourite challenge was to localise the bio distribution of labelled particles in lymph nodes and the identification of target cells.
 
As lab manager, Arianna supports all the members of Maizels group in their research projects. From the organisation of the resources, to the training of new group members, to the maintenance of parasite species Heligmosomoides polygyrus and Nippostrongylus  brasiliensis, to the coordination of recombinant proteins production and the exchange of research material with collaborators. 

Li An Cowley

Wellcome Trust PhD Student

Li An’s interests lie in molecular parasitology and translational research. Her PhD project focuses on helminth-derived extracellular vesicles and development of a multi-species multivalent anthelmintic vaccine. Li An obtained her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and worked briefly at Abcam in bespoke antibody development. She then undertook a Masters project developing a novel blood-stage malaria vaccine at the Jenner Institute before moving to Scotland for her PhD.

Nadia Davis

Wellcome Trust PhD Student

Ruby White

Post-Doctoral Researcher.  

Ruby is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Glasgow. Her current research focuses on the effects of TGMs on dendritic cell activation and function.
 
Ruby holds a BSc degree from the University of Otago, NZ. Ruby completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2023 where she investigated interactions between helminths and their secreted products with the small intestinal epithelium using organoids.
Profile

Anna Heawood

 

New Paper on DCs defines modulation by H. polygyrus HES products
Andrea Kemter’s new paper on H. polygyrus modulation of HES is coming out in PLOS Pathogens – available now at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1014528 Kemter, A.M., Grainger, J.R., Smyth, D.J., Forss, C., Phythian-Adams, A., Ivens, A.C., White, R.F., Raponi, A. MacDonald, A.S., McSorley, […]
New paper from ten Dijke lab defines TGM6 antagonism of TGF-β signalling and creates novel chimeras with new inhibitory specificity
PDF available here
New Paper on TGM Engineering: a new inhibitor of fibroblast TGF-β signalling
Cunningham, K.T., Ciancia, C., Campion, T., van Dinther, M., Davis, N. Duffy, A., Power, L., Sanders, A., Singh, S.P., Smyth, D.J., Thompson, E., White, R., Hinck, A.P., ten Dijke, P. and  Maizels, R.M. (2026) Molecular engineering of the helminth TGFβ mimetics, […]
New Paper on TGM2
Emma Ntang’s paper on TGM2 has been published in Genes and Immunity! Ntang, E.Y., Cunningham, K.T., Singh, S.P., Ciancia, C., Sanders, A., Lilla, S., Mukundan, A., Ghogomu, S.M., Hinck, A.P. and Maizels, R.M. (2025). Structural and functional analysis of the […]

Emma Ntang