Double Whammy

Congratulations to Dr Christophe Lalaurie who has had 2 papers published in as many weeks!

Firstly he played a crucial role in this simulation of the globular head of C1q (With Nicole Rodgers first author from her BSc). This paper showed a potential correlation between C1q's ability to bind CRP, and temperature, suggesting a potential energy window for interaction.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-025-06464-y

Before publishing a comprehensive simulation of B2GPI with a lot of help from our friends at the Delcea Lab in Greifswald (https://biochemie.uni-greifswald.de/en/forschung/forschung-in-den-arbeitskreisen/ordner-aks-lehrstuehle/biophysikalische-chemie/prof-dr-mihaela-delcea/) and Prof. Paul Dalby here at UCL (https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/8354-paul-dalby).

This shows the differences in the unravelling of the circular form of B2GPI between the wild-type and the plasmin clipped version. Its a great paper with some wonderfully developed methods even if we do say so ourselves!

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjsbx.2025.100135

Well done Christophe, Nicole, The Delcea Lab, Prof. Dalby and everyone involved!

Welcome Karen!

We have a new Post Doc in the McDonnell Laboratory. Dr Karen Feehan has joined the lab as our resident monocyte/macrophage expert and brings much needed expertise in flow cytometry the laboratory. Karen's projects will be looking at phenotyping cellular responses across a number of autoimmune disorders whilst in the lab.

Welcome Karen, its great to have you aboard!

Dr Karen Feehan, newest member of the McDonnell Lab!

2025 Research Retreat

The whole McDonnell Group was at the Research Retreat in Canary Wharf this year! A strong showing with both Keira and Imogen presenting posters. We even had time to take the first official lab picture! It was a fantastic day, with lots of great science and congrats to all the speakers, special shout out to our fellow ARR ECRs Dr George Robinson, Dr Lizzy Rosser and Dr Claire Beesley.

L to R: Dr Thomas McDonnell, Ms Keira Louden, Ms Imogen Buckle, Ms Lucia Martin and Dr Christophe Lalaurie.