The Andrew Bushell Travel Bursary Fund, which was launched in April 2017 to celebrate Andrew's career and his contributions to the success of the Wood Lab/Transplantation Research Immunology Group (TRIG), helps provide travel bursaries for graduate students and early career researchers to attend meetings.
Rebeca Arroyo Hornero is in the last year of her DPhil programme studying a human cell population, named regulatory T cells, that play an important role in transplant tolerance, autoimmunity and cancer. Her research aims to identify new strategies to increase regulatory T cell potency in order to generate a more potent therapy for clinical use. In particular, Rebeca is studying how modulation of the CD27/CD70 pathway may allow for the generation of a purer regulatory T cell population with enhanced suppressive properties.
During her time as a DPhil student, she has attended several national and international conferences and has had the opportunity to present her research and to establish new collaborations.
Rebeca says: 'I am very grateful for the support from the Andrew Bushell Memorial Travel Fund that I have been awarded which will allow me to attend the European Congress of Immunology conference, making it possible to present and extend my research project. Being close to the end of my DPhil, conferences such as this will help me to expand my knowledge of novel directions for the next steps of my research career.'
Jessica Padley is a 5th year medical student studying at Pembroke College Cambridge. She has always been fascinated by the immune system and what happens when its regulation goes wrong. Jessica read immunology alongside cancer and genetic diseases in the Department of Pathology and has explored the link between MHC presentation and ankylosing spondylitis in Dr Louise Boyles' laboratory. Currently, her main research interest looks at immunogenetics and its link to renal transplant rejection and BK virus reactivation within the Clatworthy laboratory.
Jessica hopes to gain a place on the academic foundation training programme. She is passionate about research and improving care for patients. She aspires to become a nephrologist and to continue her research into the immunology of renal transplants. Jessica will use her award to attend the BTS (British Transplantation Society) Annual Congress where she has had a poster accepted.