Vitalina Chamberlain-Evans

I am a PhD student in James Thaventhiran's lab. I studied immunology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics as part of my BSc. Additionally, I completed courses at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), University of Cambridge, and the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) on analysis of Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoires, programming(R, Python), and statistics.

I have been interested in analysing immunotoxic immune responses since 2011 when I was a high school student and had a year of laboratory working experience studying autoimmune responses in multiple sclerosis with antibody genes sequencing. I was fascinated by the complexity of B-cell immune responses and decided to study immunology, genetics, and molecular biology at university. My BSc diploma project focused on developing a new method for UMI-based antibody genes analysis with NGS. I also worked on single-cell antibody sequencing with microfluidic emulsion. This technology was applied to understand how the human immune system reacts to vaccines for common pathogens like flu and novel ones like yellow fever.

In 2017, I joined the University of Cambridge, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Prof J Heeney's lab for an internship to adapt this new method to study SIV vaccination in macaques as a model for HIV vaccine. I was also involved in Prof J Henney’s spin-off DIOSynVax, which innovates vaccine design for emerging pathogens.

From 2018 to 2022, I was at Prof John Trowsdale's lab at the Pathology Department, University of Cambridge, where I worked on developing new methods to analyze NK-cell receptors (KIR, NKG2…) and how they recognize MHC-presented peptides. I used NGS, qPCR, flow cytometry, bioinformatics, robotics for automation of lab experiments, and functional experiments to study how improper immune function affects placenta development in pregnancy, causing preeclampsia and growth restriction, and persistent viral infections like CMV.

In April 2020, I was invited to join the setup of the Cambridge Covid Testing Centre, a collaboration of NHS, the University of Cambridge, GSK, and AZ, due to my expertise in qPCR testing and molecular biology clean lab setups. I have remained a volunteer for months, and these efforts were highlighted by the Recognition Scheme Award.

In 2022, I joined J Thaventhiran's lab at MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Cambridge, to work on the analysis of vaccination and cancer immunity. In 2023, I started my PhD, 'Developing novel single-cell sequencing methods for the identification of immunotoxic B lymphocytes,' which aims to create new methods to better understand off-target effects of vaccines and cancer immunotherapies. In my work I use wet lab and bioinformatics and utilize a variety of novel single-cell tools lke SMART-seq to 10xGenomics, Parse, Fluent, custom protocols in addition to NGS, FACS and other immunological techniques.

Since 2018, I have been demonstrating Immunology practicals for Natural Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and Medical Undergraduate students at Cambridge University. Additionally, I volunteer at the Cambridge Science Festival and participate in various popular science activities such as talks, radio, TV, and magazines over the last ten years.