Current Members
George Birchenough - Assistant Professor/PI
George is an Assistant Professor in the department of Medical Biochemistry & Cell Biology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg. Originally trained as a medical microbiologist working with neonatal infection at University College London, he went on to complete a postdoc investigating mucus and goblet cell biology at the University of Gothenburg, where he is still based. In 2020 he was appointed as a Research Fellow at the Wallenberg Centre for Molecular & Translational Medicine.
George’s CV can be found here
Joana K Volk - Doctoral candidate
After completing her MSc in Molecular Medicine and studying for her MD at the University of Freiburg, Joana successfully applied for a Basic Medicine PhD position funded by Sahlgrenska Academy and officially joined the lab in 2021. She is currently completing her MD, which was delayed due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Akshi Singla - Postdoctoral researcher
Akshi joined the lab as a postdoc in 2022 after working as a postdoc in the microbiology and immunology department at University of Gothenburg and completing a PhD in chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. Her project aims at identifying specific microbiota-host signaling pathways that regulate goblet cell dependent host microbiome interactions.
Karl Hansson - Postdoctoral researcher
Karl joined the lab as a postdoc in 2021 after working as a consultant for AstraZeneca and completing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Gothenburg. His project aims to determine the role of goblet cell-intrinsic defence failure in the development of colorectal cancer.
Åsa Johansson - Doctoral candidate (co-supervised)
Åsa joined the lab as an associated PhD student working under the supervision of Dr. Malin Johansson. She works part time as a Bitr. Verksamhetschef in Clinical Microbiology in Växjö, and part time in studying how goblet cell-intrinsic defences develop during the post-natal period.
Mahadevan V. Subramani - Doctoral candidate
Dev joined the lab as a PhD student in 2021 after completing his MSc thesis work at the Karolinska Institute. His current project examines the interactions of bacterial pathogens with intestinal goblet cell subtypes.
Juan Sienes - Erasmus student
Juan joined the lab in 2021 as an Erasmus project student, working to establish new methods in accurately quantifying goblet cell dynamics during infection and inflammation.
Lab alumni:
Dr. Suzan Fares (Postdoctoral researcher 2020-2021)