Featured article: Körber et al., Nature Genetics (2025) 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#StemCells #CancerResearch #SystemsBiology #MathematicalModelling #Bioinformatics #NatureGenetics #MRCWIMM

Experimental tests follow in appropriate in vitro and in vivo models. Their interdisciplinary team spans biology, medicine, mathematics, physics and data science.

They also generate single-cell multi-ome data from primary human tissue to generate mechanistic hypotheses on the molecular regulation of division and differentiation decisions in health and disease.

Their tools quantify tissue renewal in ageing human blood and during the development of leukaemia, brain cancer and neuroblastoma.

These models draw on principles from population genetics to identify characteristic footprints of genetic drift and clonal selection in the cumulative distribution of somatic variant allele frequencies.

Their research uses the continuous accumulation of somatic variants as molecular barcodes. They combine next generation sequencing at bulk and single-cell resolution with novel mathematical models of division and differentiation dynamics along stem and progenitor cell hierarchies.

Their key questions include:
- How fast do human stem and progenitor cells divide and differentiate?
- When in life do tissues malignantly transform and how fast do malignant clones expand?
- How are normal and malignant division and differentiation decisions molecularly regulated?

They are interested in the dynamics of division and differentiation of stem and progenitor cells in humans and how these become subverted in diseases such as cancer and as we age.

Verena’s research is dedicated to understanding how stem cells sustain tissue function via self-renewal and progressive differentiation into increasingly fate-restricted progenitor, precursor and mature cell types.

This study was generously supported by the @ukri.org Medical Research Council, @helmsleytrust.bsky.social, @oxfordbrc.bsky.social and @wellcometrust.bsky.social

We’re thrilled to have Sumana and her group here at the WIMM, driving innovative research at the intersection of immunology and systems biology.

Ultimately, their goal is to engineer or reprogram T cell function to improve immune control in disease — enhancing function where needed and restraining it where necessary.

By combining experimental and computational strategies — including CRISPR-based perturbations, functional genomics, and network analysis — the Sharma Lab takes a systems-level approach to map how T cell states are established and transitioned.

Her team aims to define how signaling inputs are integrated to shape T cell behaviour across contexts such as cancer and viral infection. A particular focus is on inhibitory signaling networks in cytotoxic T cellsand how these pathways modulate cell state, effector function & adaptability.

Sumana’s group is dedicated to understanding how T cells are wired — from receptors and signaling pathways to transcriptional programs — and how these molecular circuits determine their function and state.