Lab Members

• PhD student - Hannah Coutts

I received my BSc in Biology from the University of Arkansas in 2015. I then left the states moved to Scotland, where I graduated with my MSc in Infection Biology from the University of Glasgow. During my time at Glasgow Uni, I worked in the Davison Lab at the Centre for Virus Research, where my research focused on the role of the cytoskeleton during infection with Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). I then went on to receive an MScR in Infection and Immunity from the University of Edinburgh. I had the privilege of working at The Roslin Institute under Dr. Finn Grey and Dr. Elly Gaunt. My work again centred on HCMV, however my focus was understanding the role of viral genome dinucleotide content on replication and gene expression.

Currently, I am a PhD student in the Courtney Lab where my role concerns mapping epitranscriptomic RNA modifications across the IAV genome and its transcripts, and elucidating their roles in the viral lifecycle. Such modifications have been implicated in affecting several post-transcriptional regulatory functions such as RNA secondary structure, translation efficiency and immune recognition. Our lab utilises recent technologies and that allow for us virologists to pinpoint the precise location of RNA modifications, determine their evolutionary conservation and to explore their phenotypic effects.

• PhD student - Stefano Bonazza

I am a first-year PhD student in the Courtney Lab.

I hold an undergraduate degree in Biotechnology and a master’s in Cellular and Molecular Biology, both obtained at the University of Bologna. As part of my master’s, I worked for one year at the Heinrich Pette Institute for Experimental Virology in Hamburg (Germany), studying Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). In particular, I employed single-molecule light microscopy to assess the role of subnuclear organelles in the biogenesis of the HCMV replication compartment.

My main interests lie in the many ways viruses hijack cellular processes to their benefit, as well as the intricacies of the host defence mechanism. I like employing high-technology microscopy approaches to dissect complex biological problems.

In the Courtney Lab, I am studying the mechanisms that guide the deposition of epitranscriptomic modifications on Influenza transcripts. It is known that many modifications are installed onto cellular transcripts co-transcriptionally, and the writer proteins responsible for their deposition are able to interact with the RNA polymerases of the cell. Thus, it is a possibility that the Influenza Polymerase (FluPol) could act as a recruitment hub for writers, resulting in the modification of all viral transcripts. I am currently employing single-molecule confocal microscopy, as well as unbiased proteomics approaches, to investigate the association between the FluPol and the writer machinery during infection.

• Postdoc - Dr Swathi Sukumar

• Postdoc - Dr Hannah Turkington