MEET THE TEAM
Professor Nigel B. Jamieson, MBChB, BSc, FRCS (Glas), PhD
Professor of Surgery | School of Cancer Sciences | Group Leader | Jamieson Spatial Laboratory | Univerisity Of Glasgow
Honorary Consultant Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgeon | New Lister Building, Glasgow Royal Infirmary
Cancer Research UK Clinician Scientist
Nigel is a Group Leader within the School of Cancer Sciences and an Honorary Consultant HPB Surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He completed his medical degree at the University of Glasgow and subsequently undertook a PhD, funded by the Chief Scientist Office for Scotland, investigating gene expression signatures in pancreatic cancer.
After completing his surgical training (including observership periods at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York) he undertook an international fellowship year of pancreas and liver surgery in Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia. The work of the Jamieson Group is supported by a Clinical Scientist grant from Cancer Research UK.
nigel.jamieson@glasgow.ac.uk
RESEARCH FELLOWS
Andrew J. Cameron, MB ChB, DLM, MRCS (Ed)
Andrew is a Clinical Research Fellow within the School of Cancer Sciences and Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He is a Specialty Registrar in General Surgery in the West of Scotland Deanery.
His PhD candidacy and research interest are in molecular mechanisms of immune progression in pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous neoplams (IPMNs) and mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCNs).
He has coordinated the introduction of 10x Genomics Visium for FFPE in Glasgow and has wide experience of Visium analysis.
His work is supported by a UKRI MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship, an NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde Research Endowment Grant and a priming grant from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Assya Legrini, BSc (Hons)
Assya is a Post Doc following completion of her PhD within the School of Cancer Sciences. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Science from the University of Liverpool, Assya embarked on a career in Research & Development in the pharmaceuticals industry. She joined the Jamison Group in 2019.
Her research interests lie in deep phenotyping of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma through advanced image analysis. She is supported by a grant from Cancer Research UK.
Colin Wood, BSc (Hons), MB ChB, MRCS (Glas)
Colin is a Clinical Research Fellow within the School of Cancer Sciences. After a background in computing science, he graduated in medicine from the University of Glasgow in 2013 and entered specialty training in General Surgery.
He is currently in the final year of his PhD candidacy in spatial molecular mechanisms within colorectal cancer (CRC) and the development of CRC liver metastases. He has developed a number of computational tools to assist in the analysis of NanoString GeoMx data.
He has a keen interest in undergraduate medical education and is a proud supporter of Motherwell F.C.
Ritika Nara, BSc (Hons), MSc
Nara is a PhD student within the School of Cancer Sciences. Her project aims to investigate the immunosuppressive role of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by employing spatial biology characterisation. She is funded jointly by the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre (Edinburgh-Glasgow) under the supervision of Nigel Jamieson, Prof John Le Quesne, and Dr Peter Bankhead.
Before moving onto a PhD, Nara graduated with a Master’s in Cancer biology from University College London. Her research interests include spatial biology, pathology, immunology, and biomechanics.
Tengyu Zhang, BSc, MSc
Tengyu is a PhD student within the School of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow, funded by Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC).
She finished her undergraduate study at Guangxi University in China, majoring in Biotechnology for lots of wet lab experiences; later completed her Master study in Cancer research at University of Glasgow, following Prof. Nigel to finish her final project with spatial transcripts of GeoMx data.
Her research interests focus on exploring complex features of different compartments in tumor microenvironment, aiming to investigate molecule subtypes of pancreatic cancers by analyzing single-cell level spatial-omics data (Nanostring CosMx data), and then integrating with AI model for precise clinical application.
Mari-Claire McGuigan, MBChB
Mari-Claire McGuigan is a clinical research fellow within the school of Cancer Sciences. She is a higher speciality trainee in General Surgery in the West of Scotland, currently in her first year of her PhD (August 2023) supervised by Professor. Nigel Jamieson and Dr. Xiao Fu.
Her research interests are in comprehensive multi-omic phenotyping of pre-malignant pancreatic cystic lesions to determine the molecular and cellular characteristics of tumours at high-risk of progression to cancer. She is focused on learning how to analyse complex data within the field of spatial transcriptomics.
TECHNICAL TEAM
Claire Kennedy Dietrich, BSc (Hons), MSc
Claire graduated from the University of Dundee with a BSc (Hons) in Anatomical Science and later from the University of Strathclyde with a MSc in Biomedical Engineering. After first working within the NHS as a rehabilitation technician, she then moved to work within the University of Glasgow.
Her background is in neuropathology having worked as the research technician for the Glasgow Brain Injury Research Group, looking at the link between traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disease. She has newly joined the Jamieson spatial transcriptomics lab as Senior Research Technician and can help with any and all questions lab or cake related.
Yoana Doncheva, BSc (Hons)
Yoana is a Research Technician within the School of Cancer Sciences. She obtained her BSc in Pharmacology from Glasgow Caledonian University, where she presented a thesis on epigenetic changes in spinal muscular atrophy mouse models and their effect on disease pathogenesis. She supported the Covid-19 test and trace efforts through her employment within the UK Lighthouse Labs Network and continued exploring her interest in genomics while working for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Laboratory Genetics.
She joined the Jamieson group in 2022 and is interested in cancer immunology, spatial immune landscapes, and omics data analysis. Her work within the team focuses on the organization and execution of collaborative projects and the overall efficient running of the lab.