Vivian Lau

I am a Wellcome Trust-funded DPhil student in Infection, Immunology and Translational Medicine who joined the group of Audrey Gerard in February 2020 to study the effects of IFNy-signaling deficiency on the tumour immune landscape.

I obtained my BSc and MSc in Canada at McMaster University where I completed a research-based project on the genetic engineering of human T cells for cancer immunotherapy. My experience in translational research and curiosity towards next generation cancer therapies led me to pursue a doctoral degree in basic immunology.

With the goal of better understanding adaptive and innate dynamics, I have taken an interest in using genetic tumour models and single-cell bioinformatics to analyze immune perturbations within the tumour. Combined with imaging techniques, I hope to explore how sequencing and spatial analysis of infiltrating immune cells can be used to illustrate a successful anti-tumour response in vivo.