Alumni

Precision Medicine DTP Alumni

Over 120 students have graduated from the Precision Medicine Doctoral Training Programme to date.  

Our alumni are applying the skills, knowledge and experience they gained with the programme to make a difference in the real world. They have taken up positions as academic and industrial research scientists, data scientists, patent attorneys, science writers and much more.

Discover the diverse career paths and experiences of our graduates by exploring the profiles below and see where our graduates are making an impact around the world on our Alumni Destinations map.

Profile - Ian McCraken

Towards the end of my PhD, which was based at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science under the supervision of Prof Andy Baker and Prof Chris Ponting, I was fortunate enough to be awarded an MRC Precision Medicine Transition Fellowship. This one year of funding allowed for me to move to Prof Nicola Smart’s group at the University of Oxford to pursue a project which I had devised focusing on understanding the regulation of how coronary blood vessels are formed in the developing embryo. This project involved using a combination of murine lineage tracing models as well as creating a novel human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) model of coronary endothelial cell development.

 

McCracken Photo

After relocating to the Institute of Development and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Oxford I was able to establish a novel protocol to differentiate hiPSC to endocardial cells, one of the key populations in the embryo which gives rise to the endothelial cells of the forming coronary blood vessels. During this time, I was also fortunate enough learn several new in vivo techniques such as lineage tracing, embryonic dissections, and ex vivo cardiac explant cultures. This crucial pilot data and new experience which I acquired during these 12 months was fundamental to me subsequently securing a 4-year British Heart Foundation Fellowship. This Fellowship will allow me to continue to explore my interest in the key gene regulatory pathways governing coronary endothelial cell formation during embryonic development, with the scope to reactivate these regulators in the adult heart to facilitate revascularisation after a heart attack.

I have also recently been awarded a BHF project grant and funding from the MRC/BHF CoRE in Advanced Cardiac Therapies (REACT) enabling me to recruit both a PhD student and a Research Assistant to further establish my independent research programme as I aim to move towards a group leader position. 

 

Profile - James Weatherill

Hear former Precision Medicine student James Weatherill talk about his time on the programme.

James Weatherill - My time on the Precision Medicine DTP

Alumni Destinations

Alumni from the Precision Medicine programme have gone on to work all over the world! The map below shows the variety of destinations they gone on to work in.

Map showing locations where Precision Medicine alumni have worked
Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States (California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota).

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