People

Principal Investigator: Dr David A Tumbarello

(D.A.Tumbarello at soton.ac.uk)

cropped headshot_2I obtained my PhD while working in the lab of Prof Chris Turner at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York investigating the role of focal adhesion proteins during epithelial-mesenchymal transformation and their influence on cytoskeletal rearrangement during cell migration/invasion. Following on from this, I was a postdoctoral fellow with Cancer Research UK at the Cambridge Institute in Cambridge, UK working in the lab of Prof James Brenton investigating the mechanisms of cell-extracellular matrix interactions and their relationship to therapeutic resistance in ovarian cancer. Following on from this, I was a Research Associate at the CIMR in Cambridge, UK working in the lab of Prof Folma Buss interrogating the function of actin motor proteins and associated adaptor proteins in autophagy, a cytoplasmic degradation pathway. More specifically, this work has defined how autophagy receptor specificity towards distinct cargo is coordinated and what determines their individual cellular role. I joined Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton as a Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences in 2014.

Current Lab Members

PhD Student: Naziah Choudhury

(N.S.Choudhury at soton.ac.uk)

Naziah_headshotFunded by a University of Southampton Presidential Scholarship

Naziah joined the lab in January 2024 and is investigating how the mitochondrial stress response drives innate immune signaling.

 

PhD Student: Molly Slade

(mcs1g20 at soton.ac.uk)

Funded by the BBSRC SoCoBioDTP

Molly joined the lab in October 2024 and is investigating how cells coordinate different mitochondrial quality control pathways during oxidative stress.

 

PhD Student: Yiqun (Zoey) Zhou

(Yiqun.Zhou at soton.ac.uk)

Funded by the China Scholarship Council

Zoey joined the lab as a PhD student in December 2024 and will be investigating the role of organelle contact sites in quality control pathways.

 

MRes Student: Lucy Styles-Forsyth

(lsf1u24 at soton.ac.uk)

Lucy joined the lab in October 2025 and is investigating mechanisms of innate immune signaling following mitochondrial stress.

MRes Student: Miranda Brown

(mb7g22 at soton.ac.uk)

Miranda joined the lab in October 2025 and is investigating how a particular autophagy adaptor regulates mitophagy. 

Previous Lab Members

Research Fellow:

  • Dr Thomas Ryan (2017-2019) – Associate Principal Scientist at Sygnature Discovery

PhD Students:

  • Dr Naomi Thorne (2020-2024) – Research Fellow at UCL
  • Dr Charlotte Collier (2017-2021) – Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Southampton
  • Dr Emelia Assar (2015-2019) – Associate Business Development Manager, UK Health Security Agency

MRes Students:

  • Colleen Ruedi (2023) – Scientist II in ADQC, Oxford Biochemica
  • Toby Segasby (2022) – PhD student at Dublin City University
  • Anna Manyseva (2021) – PhD student at Imperial College London

Undergraduate students:

  • Aiden Fanucci – Integrated Masters project (2024-25)
  • Constanca Cruz – Integrated Masters project (2023-24)
  • Yasmine Barberic – Summer research project (2023)
  • Joshua Wright – Integrated Masters project (2022-23)
  • Kieran Basavaraja – Integrated Masters project (2022-23)
  • Georgia Bonfield – Integrated Masters project (2021-22)
  • Ruchi Masih – Integrated Masters project (2021-22)
  • James Lee – Integrated Masters project (2020-21)
  • Rebecca Wood – Integrated Masters project (2019-20)
  • Elliott Phillips – Integrated Masters project (2018-19)
  • Ian Bessant – Integrated Masters project (2018-19)
  • Daniel Routledge – Integrated Masters project (2017-18)
  • Ryan Gullock – Integrated Masters project (2017-18)
  • Kieran Reals – Integrated Masters project (2016-17)
  • Stephen Izod – Integrated Masters project (2016-17)
  • Emily Newbold – Summer project; Wellcome Trust Vacation Scholarship (2016)
  • Alice Robinson – Integrated Masters project (2015-16)
  • Adina Seaton – Integrated Masters project (2015-16)
  • Alex Shaw – Summer research project (2015)
  • Gregory Pluck – Integrated Masters project (2014-15)
  • Sarah Brennan – Integrated Masters project (2014-15)