Madeleine Smee

As a research assistant in the Julian Knight group, I work on a number of different projects.
The main focus of my work is investigating the contributions of different cell types to the septic
state, using peripheral blood samples from septic patients, under Andrew Kwok. Sepsis is a disease
with high morbidity and reduced understanding in terms of therapeutics, the aim of this research is
to improve our functional understanding of the disease which can aid in therapeutic development.

The opportunity to work within this research group has allowed me to explore my interest in medical
biology. I completed my bachelors in Biology at Oxford Brookes University in 2018, with my research
project focused on the genetic causes of insecticide resistance, in Malaria mosquitoes. I then worked as part of the cell line development team at Orbit Discovery, a small therapeutic drug discovery start-up company in Oxford, where I developed skills in culturing and altering immortalised cell lines. I now look forward to where my research role at the Wellcome Centre takes me.