Tiago C. Luis, PhD
Principal Investigator
Sir Henry Dale Fellow of the Wellcome Trust and The Royal Society
I graduated from the University of Lisbon (Portugal) in 2005 and since then my research has focused on the mechanisms regulating haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function and the extracellular signals these cells receive from their niche. During my PhD studies in the laboratory of Prof. Frank Staal and Prof. Jacques van Dongen at Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam (The Netherlands) I studied the role of the Wnt-signalling pathway in haematopoiesis. I demonstrated a stage/lineage-specific and dosage-dependent effect of Wnt-signalling throughout adult haematopoiesis. After obtaining my PhD in 2010 I joined the laboratory of Prof. Sten Eirik Jacobsen at the University of Oxford (UK) as an EMBO postdoctoral fellow, to investigate the cellular pathways of lineage commitment from HSCs. I characterized the first haematopoietic progenitors that migrate and colonize the foetal thymus, where they encounter a specific microenvironment eliciting further differentiation through the T-lymphocyte lineage. In 2014 I as awarded a Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund Fellowship to investigate the bone marrow niche of platelet-biased HSCs.
In 2018 I was awarded a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society to start my laboratory at Imperial College London. My research focuses on the molecular mechanisms by which the bone marrow niche regulates HSCs, in homeostasis and in the development of haematological malignancies.
Lab Members
Lab Members
Aya Elmeligy
PhD Student
My Name is Aya Elmeligy, I completed a Master's at the University of East Anglia where my worked on a project investigating lung adenocarcinomas. I joined the Luis Lab as a PhD student in 2023 where my research is focusing on the role of TGFb signalling in the regulation of hematopoietic stem cell proliferation and quiescence.
Henry Xu
PhD Student
My name is Jiarui (Henry) Xu and I come from China. Following graduation from Imperial College London in 2019 with BSc in Biological Sciences with Research Abroad, I worked as a research assistant at Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute for 18 months. During this time, I contributed to projects including the characterization of human foetal haematopoiesis using single-cell RNA-seq. In 2021, I joined Tiago Luis group at Imperial College as a PhD student. My research focus on the mechanisms regulating the quiescence and proliferation of haematopoietic stem cells.
Aisha Jibril, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Associate
My name is Aisha Jibril, and I completed my undergraduate degree in Cell and Molecular biology at Aston University. In 2019, I pursued a PhD at the University of East Anglia where I investigated the role of mitochondrial damage-associated molecular patterns (mtDAMPs) in the bone marrow microenvironment of multiple myeloma. In 2023, I joined the Luis Lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate where I am investigating the regulatory effects of pro-inflammatory signals within the bone marrow microenvironment on hematopoietic stem cells in clonal haematopoiesis and myelodysplastic syndromes.
Current research project students
Shufan Yue - BSc Medical Biosciences
Join the lab
You can find more information here. If you are interested in joining the lab please get in touch.
Alumni
Marine Secchi - PhD Student (Wellcome Trust - Molecular & Cellular Basis of Infection) - 2020/24
Oliver Herd - Post-doctoral Research Associate - 2021
Vasiliki Symeonidou - Post-doctoral Research Associate - 2020
Kexin Fan - Research Assistant - 2019/20 and MSc Immunology 2019
Ywen Cao (Wendy) - BSc Medical Biosciences - 2024
Olivia Zukowska - Intercalated BSc Molecular and Translational Haematology - 2024
Rose Leishman - MSc Immunology - 2024
Andy Zhang - Msc Immunology - 2023
Julius Schmiegelow - MRes Biomedical Research - 2023
Paula Horta Hugues - MRes Systems and Synthetic Biology - 2022
Filippos Maniatis - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences -2022
Hanrui Zhao - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - 2022
Sisi Chen - Undergraduate Student - BSc Biological Sciences - 2021
Victoire Boulat - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - 2021
Yxuan Wang - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - 2020
Hana Dowidar - Undergraduate Student - BSc Medical Bioscience - 2020
Marine Secchi - MSc, Wellcome Trust, Molecular and Cellular Basis of Infection - 2020
Anu Chahal - Undergraduate Student - BSc Biochemistry - 2020
Mark Pailing - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - 2020
Eleonor Hawkins - MRes Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - 2019
Kexin Fan - MSc Immunology - 2019
Contact us
Dr. Tiago C. Luis
Centre for Inflammatory Diseases,
Dept. of Immunology and Inflammation,
Room 9S4, Commonwealth Building,
Hammersmith Campus,
Imperial College London,
London W12 0NN,
United Kingdom