Keywords:

Immunology, infection, virus, respiratory, mucosal immunology, zebrafish, in vivo models, microscopy, flow cytometry

Madina Wane, MRes (she/her/hers)

Postgraduate researcher (PhD), Imperial College London

Madina is a final year student at Imperial College London currently completing a PhD in Immunology in Professor Maggie Dallman’s group. Her PhD project focuses on developing new methods to study respiratory viral infections and respiratory immunity using the zebrafish model organism. She specifically studies the gills, the respiratory tissue in fish, to evaluate immunological differences and similarities to mammalian systems.

Madina completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Masters degree in Infection and Immunity also at Imperial College London. She previously worked on research in a number of different immunology areas including immune cell signalling, immunomodulation in helminth infection, and macrophage modulation by hepatitis B virus. In her current research she has used a combination of microscopy tools, cellular techniques, and molecular biology tools to characterise immune cell populations and responses in the zebrafish respiratory mucosa.

Outside of her research she has worked at the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wellcome Trust to support work in science policy. She has also organized events to support professional development and networking for PhD and undergraduate students at Imperial and consulted on initiatives to improve equity in postgraduate degree programmes.

Madina also has given a number of public talks on science or equity, and has organised interactive stalls to engage the public with scientific research.