The OkkenVikings

Professor Klaus Okkenhaug is Head of the Division of Immunology at the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge. He was born in Montreal, grew up in Oslo and then returned to Canada to do his B.Sc. in Biochemistry at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, followed by a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Toronto. In 1999, he moved to London, where he joined Bart Vanhaesebroeck's group at the UCL branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Klaus joined the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development at the Babraham Institute as a BBSRC David Phillips Fellow and Group Leader in 2003. He moved to the University of Cambridge in 2017 as the Professor of Immunology. His group investigates the role of cell signalling pathways in the immune system, with particular focus on the Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks). In recent years, he has contributed to the description of a new primary immunodeficiency syndrome caused by activated PI3Kδ mutations (APDS) and his group demonstrated that deletion of PI3Kδ in regulatory T cells unleashes a potent anti-tumour response. He has published more than 100 articles and reviews in leading journals and is an internationally-leading authority on the role of PI3Ks in immunity, infection and cancer.

Andrew is a Wellcome Clinical Career Development fellow working in the Okkenhaug Group.  Andrew obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, examining the role of complement C5a in driving neutrophil dysfunction in critically ill patients.  He completed clinical training in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in Edinburgh and Cambridge whilst undertaking post-doctoral research.   This work encompassed the development of clinically useable markers for immune dysfunction, a clinical trial of immunomodulatory therapy and exploration of the intracellular signalling pathways which underpin the effects of C5a.  He has also developed a number of diagnostics for nosocomial infection, including the host response test recently evaluated in the VAP-RAPID trial, and several pathogen-focussed molecular diagnostic platforms. 

His current work focusses on neutrophil phosphoproteomic responses to pathogenic bacteria, and developing multi-functional probes for flow cytometric and imaging-based assessments of neutrophil function. Andrew is also a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine in the John V Farman Intensive Care Unit, Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

Muhammad Iqbal is a PhD student funded by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. He is working closely with Dr. Andrew Conway Morris and Professor Klaus Okkenhaug on neutrophil biology specifically on how we can manipulate the human neutrophil phosphoproteomic response to Staphylococcus aureus as a model of infection and identify potential non-antibiotic therapies for augmenting the host clearance of this crucial pathogen and other pathogens alike. He obtained a Master's degree in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor degree in Biotechnology from Universitas Indonesia.

Julius Christopher Baeck is a PhD student on the Wellcome Trust Infection, Immunity and Inflammation programme, focusing on the role of PI3Kδ in B cell homoeostasis. He is particularly interested in how hyperactive PI3Kδ alters humoral immunity and causes B cell lymphomagenesis. Julius was awarded a BSc (Hons) in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Manchester in 2019 which included a placement year in Nevada, USA, and a final year project at the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation.

Leqi was born and raised in Guangdong, China. He obtained his BSc degree in Life science and Technology in China before moving to University of Tübingen, Germany, where he further acquired his MSc degree in Biochemistry. Throughout his Master study, he found training in multidisciplinary topics and inclusive academic environments very rewarding. Leqi’s long-lasting enthusiasm for T cell biology initiated from his previous lab in Germany where he studied the synergistic effect on oncolytic virus therapy with adoptive cell transfer therapy. He was then awarded PROMOS scholarship in two consecutive years by German Institutes of Higher Education (DAAD), which further supported his training in Switzerland and England. At University of Zurich, Switzerland, Leqi extended his interests into plant immunity in Prof. Cyril Zipfel’s group, where his knowledge and skills in molecular biology and biochemistry were further consolidated by studying the pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and their downstream effectors. It is then throughout his master thesis in Rahul Roychoudhuri’s lab at University of Cambridge that Leqi narrowed down his interest to T cell biology, where he interrogated the role of conventional T cells in cancer immunology.  Leqi is currently exploring the effects of hyperactive p110δ in the function of CD4+ T cell subsets.

Shanlin Tong studies the biological mechanism of PI3Kδ in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). With support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 ITN programme funding, he is keen to identify novel therapeutic strategies. Shanlin earned his BSc & MSc degrees in biomedicine from Karolinska Institute which included a research placement at Osaka University to study CD4+ T cell biology in the context of cancer vaccine. He is also a medical student at the University of Groningen. When he is not at lab, you may find him either experimenting with new recipes or training for the pentathlon.