Hiscox Lab

Lab Alumni (from the University of Leeds).

Edward Emmott. BBSRC DTG funded PhD student.

Ed obtained his BSc (1st) in Medical Microbiology & Virology from the University of Warwick in 2007, having carried out a final year research project on the interaction of Adenovirus type 5 E4 Orf3 with PML II protein under the supervision of Dr Keith Leppard. He began his PhD at the University of Leeds under Dr Julian Hiscox in July 07.  His interests include reading, cycling, swimming and watching movies. He passed his PhD in September 2011 with very few corrections and is now a post-doctoral researcher with Dr. Ian Goodfellow at Imperial College, London.

Dr. Dipl. Ing. Stefanie Jourdan. NPB funded post-doctoral fellow.

Steffi obtained her ‘Diplom Ingenieur’ title in medical Biotechnology from the University of Technology in Berlin, Germany. During her degree she worked in Brisbane, Australia at CSIRO carrying out her ‘Studienarbeit’ (bachelor thesis) on the uptake of peptides by bacteria. Her diploma research project took place in Groningen, The Netherlands. It looked at a Lon-type protease in peroxisomes of the yeast Hansenula polymorpha. Steffi first came to Leeds to do her PhD on the substrate recognition of two endonucleases in E. coli in the group of Dr Kenneth McDowall. She then spent 6 months at The University of Manchester in Dr Martin Lowe’s lab where she worked on several aspects of Lowe syndrome.  Steffi spent two years in the lab working on porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus.

Dr Sarah McCrory. BBSRC funded post-doctoral fellow.

Sarah obtained her BSc (2.1) in Biology from University College London and conducted her PhD research on SARS coronavirus and the human immune response, in collaboration with the Health Protection Agency and the University of Reading, under the supervision of Dr Maria Zambon and Prof Ian Jones. In 2008 Sarah began her first post doc at the University of Leeds with Dr Julian Hiscox. Her interests include yoga, hiking, cooking and travel. Sarah spent a year in the lab before becoming a critical care manager with the NHS.

Charles Lardeau was a Wellcome Trust funded PhD Rotation Student. Charles is French and obtained his MSc (Distinction) in Chemical Biology from the University of Leeds in 2008 after three years in ENSIACET (National Polytechnic Institute of Chemistry, Industrial and Chemical Engineering and Technology) in Toulouse including an ERASMUS year at the Manchester Metropolitan University and a summer placement at South Dakota State University. Charles interests include tennis (playing), football (watching) and American culture.  He cloned a virus RNA binding protein from infected cells and expressed it proximal to a flourescent fusion protein and looked at interaction with the cytoskeleton using real-time confocal microscopy.

Lucy Chappell.   Lucy was a YCR Research technician in the laboratory.  She obtained her BSc (first class) in Biochemistry form University of Bath in 2007. As part of her degree she spent a year working in a lab at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia on a project involving mutagenesis of protein kinase C followed by extensive fluorescence confocal microscopy. She completed a dissertation studying the kinetic effects of site-directed mutagenesis on citrate synthase from an Antarctic bacterium and hopes to start a PhD in Enzymology in autumn 2009. Her interests include cycling her 1970's road bike and travelling the world - she is currently planning a 6 month trip to Southern Africa, including 3-4 months of voluntary work in Mozambique. Lucy's research in the laboratory focused on characterizing cell cycle changes in cancerous cells and investigating the nucleolus.

Dr Brian Dove. Brian was an industrial and then a BBSRC funded post-doctoral researcher in the laboratory. He left the lab to become a senior virologist at the Health Protection Agency. In the lab he discovered that IBV arrested cells in the G2 phase of the cell cycle in order to promote virus infection. He also found that a dynamic sub-nuclear structure called the nucleolus was altered during virus infection. Brian's research resulted in the following primary publications:

Dove, B. K., G. Brooks, K. Bicknell, T. Wurm and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Cell cycle perturbations induced by infection with the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus and their effect on virus replication. Journal of Virology 80:4147-4156.

Dove, B. K., J.H. You, M. L. Reed, S. R. Emmett, G. Brooks and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Changes in nucleolar morphology and proteins during infection with the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus. Cellular Microbiology 8:1147-1157.

Dove B. K., K. Bicknell, G. Brooks, S. Harrison and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Infectious bronchitis coronavirus induces cell-cycle perturbations. Nidoviruses: Toward control of SARS and other Nidovirus diseases. Advances in Experimental and Biology 581: 357-362.

 Dr Stevan Emmett.  Steve was an industrial funded researcher in the laboratory. He left academia and the lab to pursue a degree in medicine at the University of Warwick and graduated in this in 2008. He is now know as Dr Dr or Dr2 Steve. He pioneered much of the early protein work in the lab and used to spend every Tuesday night at Julian's house watching Holby City in order to prepare for his career in medicine. Steve's research resulted in the following primary publication:

Emmett, S. R., B. K. Dove, L. Mahoney, T. Wurm and J. A. Hiscox. 2005. The cell cycle and virus infection. Methods in Molecular Biology 296:197-218.

Dr Sally Harrison. Sally was a BBSRC/CASE (with Intervet) PhD student in the laboratory. Sally left the lab having written and submitted her thesis within 3 years and 2 days (a lab record) and is a post-doctoral researcher at the Molecular Medicine Unit, St James Hospital, University of Leeds. In the lab Sally discovered that the D-type cyclins were completely ablated in IBV infected cells. Sally's research resulted in the following primary publications:

Harrison, S. M, I. Tarpey, L. Rothwell, P. Kaiser and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Lithium chloride inhibits the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus in cell culture. Avian Pathology 36:109-114.

Harrison, S. M, B. K. Dove, L. Rothwell, P. Kaiser, I. Tarpey, G. Brooks and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Characterization of cyclin D1 down-regulation in coronavirus infected cells. FEBS Letters 581: 1275-1286.

Dr Mark 'Leslie' Reed.  Mark was a BBSRC committee studentship funded PhD student in the laboratory. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at St Jude's Medical School (USA). Mark's work focused on defining the nucleolar localization and export signals of IBV nucleoprotein. His research resulted in the following primary publications:

Reed, M. L., G. Howell, S. M. Harrison, K. A. Spencer and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Characterization of the nuclear export signal in the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus nucleocapsid protein. Journal of Virology 81: 4298-4304.

Reed, M. L., B. K. Dove, R. M. Jackson, R. Collins, G. Brooks and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Delineation and modeling of a nucleolar retention signal in the coronavirus nucleocapsid protein. Traffic 7:833-849.

Dr Jae-Hwan You. Jae was a self-funded international PhD student in the laboratory from South Korea. After his PhD he stayed on to become a post-doctoral researcher. During his PhD he focused on defining the trafficking of SARS-CoV nucleocapsid protein around the cell. His research resulted in the following primary publications:

You, J. H., M. L. Reed and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Trafficking motifs in the SARS-coronavirus nucleocapsid protein. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 358:1015-1020.

You, J. H., M. L. Reed and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Three-dimensional reconstruction of the nucleolus using meta-confocal microscopy in cells expressing the coronavirus nucleoprotein. Nidoviruses: Toward control of SARS and other Nidovirus diseases. Advances in Experimental and Biology 581: 313-318.

You, J.-H, B. K. Dove, L. Enjuanes, M. L. DeDiego, E. Alvarez, G. Howell, P. Heinen, M. Zambon, and J. A. Hiscox. 2005. Sub-cellular localization of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus nucleocapsid protein. Journal of General Virology 86:3303-3310.

Dr Kelly-Anne Spencer. Kelly was a BBSRC/CASE (with Guildhay Ltd) student in the laboratory. She left the lab and academia to move into clinical trials and research management for the NHS and earns lots of money. Kelly's research focused on the biophysical interaction of IBV nucleocapsid protein with viral RNA. She holds the record of having the most primary publications of any PhD student from the lab. These are:

Spencer, K. A., M. Dee, P. Britton and J. A. Hiscox. 2008. Role of phosphorylation clusters in the biology of the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus nucleocapsid protein. Virology. 370:373-81.

Spencer, K. A., F. A. Osorio and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Recombinant viral proteins for use in diagnostic ELISAs to detect virus infection. Vaccine 25: 5653-5659.

Spencer, K. A. and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Characterisation of the RNA binding properties of the coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus nucleocapsid protein amino-terminal region. FEBS Letters 580:5993-5998.

Spencer K. A., and J. A. Hiscox. 2006. Expression and structural analysis of infectious bronchitis virus nucleoprotein. Nidoviruses: Toward control of SARS and other Nidovirus diseases. Advances in Experimental and Biology 581: 133-138.

Mr Ryan Cawood.  Ryan deserves special mention as an undergraduate project student in the laboratory. He graduated top in his year with a 1st class honours degree in Genetics from the University of Leeds to become a PhD student at the University of Oxford. Contributing to his success was his project studying the nucleolar trafficking of viral proteins at different stages of the cycle. This led to the following primary publication:

Cawood, R., S. M. Harrison, B. K. Dove, M. L. Reed and J. A. Hiscox. 2007. Cell cycle dependent nucleolar localization of the coronavirus nucleocapsid protein. Cell Cycle 7: 863-867.

Stuart Macnab. Bionanoscience funded PhD student.  (Joint with Adrian Whitehouse). Stuart should now be writing up his thesis at all hours and on all days.

Stuart occasionally did some work for Jules. Stuart is awesome. Fact. Stuart obtained his BSc (2.1) in Microbiology & Infection from the University of Edinburgh and is currently in his final year of PhD research involing the modifcation of Herpesvirus saimiri into a gene therapy vector, with proof of principle being focused on the adenomatosis polyposis coli tumour supressor gene, under the joint supervision of Dr Julian Hiscox and Dr Adrian Whitehouse. Stuart's intrests include working with the Army Cadet Force, and is now an officer, camping, and sailing where he sails a Laser class dinghy, he is also currently learing to surf and windsurf.  His recent paper is:

Macnab S.A., R. White, J. A. Hiscox and A. Whitehouse. 2008.  Production of an infectious Herpesvirus saimiri-based episomally maintained amplicon system.  Journal of Biotechnology 134: 287-296.