new-fellows-May18
Left to right: Dr Asif Iqbal, Dr James Winter and Dr Myriam Chimen.

The Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences is delighted to introduce three of our new researchers, who have been awarded fellowships. 

Dr Chimen has been awarded a five-year Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship. Myriam’s research is focused on understanding how immune regulatory pathways are changed with ageing and age-associated chronic inflammatory conditions. In particular, to investigate how the control of leukocyte trafficking is affected by the chronic, low grade, chronic inflammation (Inflammageing) associated with ageing.

Upon moving to Birmingham Myriam worked in the laboratory of Dr Parth Narendran and Professor Ed Rainger and completed her PhD in 2012 where she discovered a novel peptide inhibitor of trans-endothelial migration (PEPITEM) and characterised this novel pathway in health and patients with type 1 diabetes. Myriam has continued her post-doctoral training in Birmingham on the characterisation of the receptor for PEPITEM. She then embarked on her second post-doctoral position in the laboratory of Professor Ed Rainger where she was investigating the role of platelet-monocyte interactions in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. 

Dr Iqbal was awarded the Birmingham Fellowship to establish a research group who focus on leukocyte recruitment and retention in chronic inflammatory pathologies such as atherosclerosis.

Asif secured a joint industrial case award with the BBSRC and UCB Celltech to pursue a PhD at the William Harvey Research Institute, QMUL, in the laboratory of Professor Mauro Perretti after completing his MSc in Immunology in infectious diseases in 2007. Asif completed his doctoral training in 2011 and joined the laboratory of Professor David Greaves at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford as a post-doctoral research fellow supported by the BHF. In 2017 Asif was awarded a Birmingham Fellowship to establish his own research group at the University of Birmingham.

Dr Winter is the recipient of a British Heart Foundation Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship for investigations into long QT syndrome; a congenital condition associated with premature death in young adults. James was recently awarded a Birmingham Fellowship to establish a research group focussed on the influence of the autonomic nervous system on the electrical stability of the heart and the mechanisms of sudden cardiac death.

James studied for his doctoral thesis on in the laboratory of Dr David Hauton at the University of Birmingham and subsequently undertook postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Professor G André Ng (University of Leicester) and Professor Michael J Shattock (King’s College London). In 2018 James was awarded a Birmingham Fellowship to establish his own research group at the University of Birmingham.