Roland joined King’s College London in November 2013 from the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), where he was head of Biological Imaging and Assay Development. At NIBSC Roland developed advanced imaging techniques for the control and standardisation of biological medicines. He also developed differentiation protocols for human embryonic stem cell lines to allow them to be used as substrates in functional biological assays.

Roland has extensive experience and knowledge of low temperature biology and cryopreservation having investigated how cells and tissues both avoid and are damaged by chilling and freezing events. He maintains an active research focus, supervising both PhD and postdoctoral researchers and has active collaborations to advancing electron microscopy and ultrastructural studies of protists.

Roland also works closely with instrument manufacturers to advance cryo-electron microscopy and cryo-instrument development.

Alejandra is a biochemist trained as an electron microscopist at EMBL in Heidelberg. In Griffiths’ group, she studied vaccinia virus host cell interactions. Later, she continued gaining experience in EM at the Medical School Hanover in Germany, studying the ultrastructural aspects of the lung and the surfactant system.

In 2012, she relocated to the UK and worked in the Diagnostic Electron Microscopy Unit (UCL) at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

She joined the CUI in 2018 to work for our diagnostic service as well as supporting research projects. Since 2021 she is working with the research team covering a vast range of techniques.

Leanne is an electron microscope technician that joined the centre in 2012. She predominantly works on the research team and has a versatile skill set having extensive experience in a range of techniques. Her main focus is sample preparation and imaging techniques using both transmission and scanning EM on a wide range of specimens.

She is also a HCPC registered biomedical scientist responsible for the clinical research projects at CUI as well as assisting with the routine diagnostic workload when necessary.

Matt’s PhD and postdoctoral research used transmission electron microscopy and tomography to examine how disruption of ESCRTs impairs endosome biogenesis in yeast and animal cells.

With this background in intracellular membrane biology, he then helped address a range of biological questions at the subcellular level at the Electron Microscopy Science Technology Platform of the Francis Crick Institute. This often involved infectious agents like mycobacteria and apicomplexan parasites. He enjoys using correlative approaches to help understand features from multiple points of view, combining electron microscopy data (often in 3D) with data from light microscopes, microanalysis, and other types of electron microscope. He’s also interested in how features from volume EM images can be modelled, and those models analysed to extract meaningful data.

Matt joined CUI in 2021 to continue applying and developing these approaches.

Matt’s publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4608-7669

Tweet Matt @MattRGR

Aleksandra joined the CUI team in October 2021 as the Administration and Finance Officer, shortly after completing her MSc in Human Resource Management and Organisational Analysis at King’s College London and is in the process of gaining a CIPD membership.

Furthermore, she has a BA in Business Management and her working background is predominantly in Finance.

Suwimon has experience working in bone mineralization process using analytical electron microscopy techniques, investigating ‘step by step’ of how bone cells sequester mineral from inside cells to bone matrix during her PhD.  Then, she continues her work in electron microscopes, and extend her experience to confocal microscopes and other material characterization techniques to examine a wide range of biological samples and nanoparticles during her work at Nanotechnology center, Thailand.

She joined CUI in June 2021 to carry out a research in bone mineralization under pathological conditions, both genetic deficiencies and irregular remodeling caused by diseases.

Gema was part of the CUI team from 2011 until 2019. She was the senior research EM technician in the Unit, responsible for the management and delivery of a wide range of EM research projects. She has a PhD in plant molecular biology and extensive research experience in a wide range of topics, with a particular focus on electron microscopy preparation methods. She co-ordinated training and teaching while managing the delivery of EM support to CUI users. She is currently affiliated to the CUI in a consultant capacity but no longer manages research projects.

Claudine joined the CUI team in March 2020 to help develop single particle cryoEM and cryo-tomography at KCL.

She has a background in structural biology, obtaining her PhD from The University Sheffield in 2012, she has used a range of biochemical and structural biology techniques throughout her career, including X-ray crystallography and cryoEM, to study biologically important systems in plants and bacteria.

Most recently, she has been researching Malarial egress with Helen Saibil and Birkbeck College, where she was able to advance her skills in cryoEM, FIB-milling and sub-tomogram averaging to understand the role of a key protein complex from the surface of malarial parasites.

Claudine’s publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9430-6822

Tweet Claudine @xray_claud

Manuela joined CUI in October 2019 as an Electron Microscopy Technician and works for our diagnostic electron microscopy service.

She has a diverse background having completed a licentiate degree in Anatomical Pathology (2008) which gives expertise in diagnostic work (such as immunohistochemistry, paraffin embedding, histology, etc).

She completed a Masters in Biotechnology (2011) and continued the work of her thesis with a grant in Biotextile-Wastewater Treatment (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369703X15001679).

She has further training in Molecular Biology techniques (such as cloning and Confocal Microscopy).

Gintare joined the CUI in October/2019 as the Administration and Finance Officer for the department.

Gintare has an excellent background in business administration and management. She has completed a Bachelor of Management and Business Administration (2007) and two Masters degrees in Economics (2009) and Business Economics (2009).

Throughout her career – while working in the banking, retail, and education sectors – she has maintained a wide range of skills. This has been demonstrated in her work in project, cost, and material resources management. Her skillset includes problem-solving, decision making, operations analysis, attention to detail, and more.