PEDICORD LAB - Key Persons

Amelia Soderholm was awarded a PhD (The University of Queensland, Australia) in 2018 for her research under the supervision of Prof Mark Walker into the interaction of Group A Streptococcus with innate immune signalling pathways. She subsequently embarked on post-doctoral training with Dr Virginia Pedicord at the University of Cambridge, UK. Amelia's current research is focused on investigating cross talk between the gut microbiome, intestinal epithelial cells, and intestinal lymphocytes, particularly focusing on CD4+ CD8aa+ intraepithelial lymphocytes. In 2020 Amelia was awarded a Careers in Immunology Fellowship by the American Association of Immunologists. Amelia is a Postdoctoral Associate member of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.

Benjamin Beresford-Jones is an MB/PhD student at the University of Cambridge (m. 2014). He is presently in the final year of his PhD at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID), Department of Medicine, and is also affiliated with the Wellcome Sanger Institute. At the Pedicord lab, Benjamin develops novel insights and bioinformatic resources for translating microbiota findings between humans and animal models such as the mouse. His work also explores the interactions of the gut microbiota with the mucosal immune system during infection. Benjamin holds first-class BA honours and MA degrees in Natural Sciences from Christ's College, Cambridge. He supervises medical students in Pharmacology and Immunology at the University. Benjamin has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Medicine Journal since 2017 and is the former President of the Cambridge University Scientific Society. Puspendu Sardar was an International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) fellow and received his PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Kiel, Germany, in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Dr Frank Kempken. He then joined the Czech Academy of Sciences as a postdoc and worked on microbial community composition in different environmental conditions. Since September 2021, Puspendu started his post-doctoral training with Dr Virginia Pedicord at the University of Cambridge, UK. Puspendu's current research is focused on the understanding gut-microbial community in mouse tumour models and human cancer patients and its relation to host immunity.

Wangmingyu Xia is currently a PhD candidate working under Dr Virginia Pedicord, in the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge. She graduated from Imperial College London with an MRes in Biomedical Research (Microbiome in Health and Disease). Wangmingyu is interested in the interaction of the gastrointestinal immune system and commensal microbiota and their metabolites. The working title of her thesis is "Effects of the commensal microbiota on T cell-mediated intestinal inflammation in response to immunotherapy".