William Mulvaney

About

I graduated from Newcastle University with a first class degree in Biomedical Science and decided to continue my studies in this wonderful city by undertaking an MRes in Immunobiology.

I was unsure at the end of my undergraduate degree whether or not I wanted to enter into a research-based career and used the MRes project to gauge if life in the lab was really what I wanted. I carried out my Master’s project “Investigating the effect of TGF-β on Neutrophils in Liver Cancer” under the primary supervision of Dr Caroline Wilson and Prof Derek Mann in the Newcastle Fibrosis Research Group. The project not only gave me an excellent opportunity to learn a diverse array of new techniques, but also challenged me to think like a real scientist – to design my own experiments and to problem solve.

The fibrosis group were very welcoming and provided a superb environment in which to learn and to carry out meaningful research. Having enjoyed the project so much, I went on to apply for a CRUK-funded studentship under the supervision of Dr Wilson and Prof D Mann (again!) as well as Dr Reeves (Northern Institute of Cancer Research). I was recently offered this PhD – further investigating the phenotypic diversity of neutrophils in liver cancer – and look forward to starting in the lab again this September!