People
Laura Pellegrini, PhD
Group Leader
Laura Pellegrini joined the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at KCL after receiving her Wellcome Trust Career Development Award. She started her laboratory in October 2023, focusing on the study of cerebral and choroid plexus organoids to understand brain development. During her postdoc at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge in the Lancaster’s lab, she developed an organoid model of the choroid plexus and cerebrospinal fluid secretion. This work offered insights into how SARS-CoV-2 might affect the brain. Her current research looks at the choroid plexus organoid model to study brain development, CSF biomarkers, and how the blood-CSF-barrier repairs after injury.
Elizabeth Apsley, PhD
Postdoc
Lizzy was awarded her PhD by the University of Oxford, where she worked in the lab of Esther Becker. Her PhD work used organoids to study early cerebellar development and investigate the role of language-associated gene FOXP2 in the human cerebellum. Her research is now focused on studying the maturation of the choroid plexus and its response to acute physical injury.
See Swee Tang, PhD
Postdoc
See Swee obtained his PhD in Bioengineering at Imperial College London. During which, he developed an organ-on-a-chip platform for advanced optical imaging to study the dynamics of mechanosensitive proteins on the cell membrane. At present, he is investigating the effect of chemical insults to the developing choroid plexus and the blood-CSF barrier integrity, using choroid plexus organoid model.
Alexis Cooper, PhD
Postdoc
Alexis completed her PhD on the imprinted KCNK9 gene and Birk-Barel intellectual disability syndrome, investigating histone deacetylase inhibition to rescue behavioural and neuronal phenotypes in a mouse model. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Berninger Lab, she worked on engineering neurogenesis via glia-to-neuron conversion, integrating molecular neurobiology with single-cell sequencing approaches. She recently joined the Pellegrini Lab, where she uses single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to study the development and disease of the human choroid plexus in tissue and organoid models.
Marian Fernandez-Otero
Research Assistant
Marian is a Research Technician specialised in histology. She previously worked in neurodevelopment labs in Spain, King's College London and Harvard Medical School. Now, she is working on deciphering the early development of the choroid plexus using human tissue and organoid models.
Charles Morris
PhD student
Charlie received his Bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences and a Master’s Degree in Nanomedicine by research from the University of Manchester under the supervision of Dr Sandra Vranic. He then gained experience as a research support officer at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology within the Lancaster lab. His work focussed on utilising organoid models to ask questions about nanomaterials, stem cell differentiation, and morphogenesis. He is now working on utilising organoid models to understand the effects of psychedelics, specifically psilocin, on the human choroid plexus and cortex.
Catarina De Brito E Raimundo
PhD student
Catarina received her Bachelor's degree in Biology, specialising in Molecular Biology and Genetics, from the Lisbon University, and her Master's in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience from Maastricht University. Both her Master's thesis and subsequent Research Assistant position were carried out at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, in the group of Prof. Elisabeth Binder, MD, PhD, investigating the epigenetic embedding of glucocorticoid signalling and its impact on cortical neurogenesis, respectively. She is now part of the Wellcome Trust PhD Training Programme in Neuro-Immune Interactions at King's College London, where her research at the Pellegrini Lab focuses on the effects of early life stress on the choroid plexus.
Mike Ellis
PhD student
Mike received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry, specialising in neuro-oncology, from The University of Bath. Mike has previously studied the development, progression and treatment of glioblastoma in labs at The University of Sydney and University College London under the supervision of Prof. Lenka Munoz and Prof. Simona Parrinello, respectively. He is now a part of the Wellcome Trust PhD Training Programme in Neuro-Immune interactions at King’s College London, studying the impact of alphavirus infections on human choroid plexus function and foetal cortical development.
Kyriaki Sapidou
Research Assistant
Kyriaki has received her Master’s degree in Drug Design from University College London (UCL). During her studies, she investigated the production of amyloid beta in iPSC-derived oligodendrocytes and evaluated the AAV - mediated delivery of a nanobody inhibitor as a strategy to reduce amyloid beta levels.
Karen Davis
Senior Research Study Coordinator
Karen is the Senior Research Study Coordinator, where her experience enables her to effectively support research operations, recruitment, procurement and ordering processes, events, supplier management and collaborative initiatives across internal and external teams. She works on a range of projects, supporting stakeholder engagement and operational delivery across multiple workstreams. Her background in the global financial sector, law, pharmaceutical and oil and gas industries has strengthened her expertise in project management, communication and cross-functional coordination.
Alumni
Jessica Kapadia, MSc
Research Assistant