Meet The Team

Professor Marcus Lee

Group Leader

Marcus grew up in Malaysia and spent his formative teenage years in Singapore. Despite this, he does not enjoy durian (n=30). Moving to Australia, he received his Ph.D from the University of Melbourne on the study of plant defense proteins with Marilyn Anderson. He then joined the lab of Randy Schekman at the University of California Berkeley, where he worked on the role of vesicle coat proteins in sculpting the lipid bilayer into secretory vesicles and populating them with cargo. During this time, he became interested in the unique cell biology of the malaria parasite, which has to generate a new secretory pathway de novo in the red cell host every invasion cycle. To learn more about the parasite, he joined the lab of David Fidock at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. His research was initially focused on the basic biology of the parasite, particularly the organization of membrane-trafficking pathways, but he gradually realised that understanding mechanisms of antimalarial resistance could be both interesting and useful. In 2015, Marcus joined the wonderful Malaria Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute outside Cambridge, and in 2023 moved to the University of Dundee, joining an amazing community of parasitology and drug discovery.

Dr Rebecca Edgar

Postdoctoral Research Assistant

A true-blue Aussie, Rebecca was born and raised just outside of Melbourne in Australia. After making the arduous 800m trek from high school to university, she completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science majoring in Infection and Immunity. A chance meeting saw her join Professor Tania de Koning-Ward’s lab at Deakin University where she obtained both an MPhil and PhD. Here her work focused on characterising the function and druggability of aminopeptidases implicated in end stage haemoglobin digestion in Plasmodium falciparum. Deciding on a slightly bigger move next, Rebecca joined the Lee lab in Dundee where she continues to focus on novel drug targets alongside a sprinkling of basic parasite biology and novel genetic tools. Outside work, her passions including traveling at the boss’ expense, curling up with a book, and exploring the sub-arctic wilderness of Scotland.

Dr Top Boonyalai

Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Born and raised amidst the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, Thailand, Top obtained a PhD in Chemical Biology from Imperial College London. Returning to his roots, he found himself immersed in the world of protein structure and function at the Department of Biochemistry, Kasetsart University, Thailand. But it was during his six-month period at Mike Blackman’s lab in the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), London, where his fascination with malaria took flight. There, he delved into the structure and function of Plasmodium falciparum serine repeat antigen 5 (PfSERA5). His journey continued as he ventured deeper into malaria research and joined the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in 2017. Since June 2023, Top has found a new home in Marcus Lee’s lab, where his research interests focus on identifying how malaria parasites become resistant to antimalarial drugs. Additionally, he helps spearhead the development of a drug-screening platform called the Antimalarial Resistome Barcode (AreBar). This innovative tool enables the profiling of new antimalarials, shedding light on their mode of action and providing invaluable insights into how they effectively combat the parasite. In his downtime, you'll find him practising his skills on the tennis court, whipping up culinary delights inspired by the latest cooking TV shows, or exploring the trendiest cafes the city has to offer.

Dr Mukul Rawat

Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Mukul hails from a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas in India. His journey into parasitology began during his graduate studies at IISER Pune, where he developed a profound fascination for Apicomplexan parasites, particularly Plasmodium. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in October 2020, he embarked on postdoctoral research in the Lee lab at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, subsequently transitioning with the lab to the University of Dundee in 2023. His research passion revolves around uncovering the intricate mechanisms of epigenetics that govern downstream biological processes in response to diverse environmental and developmental cues. Beyond academic pursuits, he find joy in cooking and traveling.

Mairi Buchanan

Research Technician

Unlike the other globe-trotters in the lab, Mairi is from the local town of Forfar, but dared to venture all the way to Aberdeen University to complete a BSc in Biology, followed by an MSc in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. This introduced her to the fascinating world of drug discovery for which she returned to Angus in 2022, working for the University of Dundee in clinical trials for respiratory research. Interested in gaining more experience in the earlier drug development stages, Mairi then found her place in the ML lab working with Top on the AReBar drug screening project. Though hard working (aided by copious volumes of caffeine), Mairi also enjoys playing various instruments and sports, travelling, and drawing.

Edem Adika

Africa Doctoral Fellow Postgraduate Student

Edem obtained his BSc in Medical Laboratory Sciences where he worked on diabetes at the University of Ghana. After he had enough ‘sugar’ he went on to do his MPhil in Molecular Cell Biology of Infectious Diseases (MCBI) from the same university now focusing on malaria, particularly antimalarial drug resistance/tolerance in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. He did not have enough ‘parasites’ this time and continued as a post-graduate research assistant at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana. He is still having loads of parasites in his current PhD in Life Sciences at the Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery (BCDD), University of Dundee. He promises to keep having parasites for the rest of his career while enjoying his other interests including listening to music and dancing. To add, he says the Lee Lab has been fantastic¹ so far² and is making this malaria journey worthwhile.

¹: Editor – the views expressed by the subject were given freely and without bribery or cajolery.

²: Editor – duly noted.

Jed Hawes

EastBio Postgraduate Student

Standing at 6ft8, Jed first put on an ill-fitting lab coat at the University of Leicester where he stumbled upon the intricate ecosystem of epigenetics and chromatin dynamics during his third-year project. Transitioning to the University of Birmingham he expertly combined an avid social life with leveraging a newfound interest to explore innovative strategies targeting oncogenic epigenetic machinery during a research masters in cancer. Now, as a Ph.D. student, he has set his sights on a new target: malaria, where he is determined to explore the therapeutic potential of epigenetics in this time consuming organism.

Rachael Coyle

Bioinformatician

Rachael had grown up with the inexplicable belief that she would be captaining a starship by now; inevitably, she found adulthood to be somewhat disappointing. Never the less, she has enjoyed nearly 10 years working in Plasmodium research. After graduating, she joined Julian Rayner's group in the Malaria program at the Sanger institute and developed projects focused on functional screening in P. Knowlesi. Battle-weary from transfections, Rachael found refuge with Marcus’s group, developing and validating protocols for compound characterisation and resistance profiling (AReBAR). This project became a testing ground for her budding bioinformatics skills as she established protocols to integrate new instruments and scripting solutions for enhanced throughput. This included the immensely satisfying task of programming a robot to handle her culture work! She can now be found in her home office in Suffolk sympathetically nodding along to her lab-based colleagues’ woes whilst she obnoxiously sips herbal teas.

Owain Donnelly

Academic Clinical Fellow

Owain was raised in Llanfairpwllgyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, North Wales. Seeking to live somewhere with a shorter name, he trained in medicine in London and specialises in infectious diseases and microbiology. He was first infected by parasitology during his Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and is passionate about the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of parasitic diseases. During an MSc in Medical Parasitology at LSHTM, he worked on schistosomiasis diagnostics with Dr Bonnie Webster at the Natural History Museum, London. After this, he was awarded a research fellowship to spend a year working on malaria cell biology at the Francis Crick Institute, in the lab of Prof Mike Blackman. He obtained an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship at LSHTM, and since then has been working at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London. Having acclimatised to London, he is now only able to live in cities of six letters or fewer, and so Dundee was the natural next step. He is thrilled to have joined the Lee group to work on the genetics of antimalarial drug resistance.

Alumni

Name

Sophie Adjalley

Aslı Akidil

Megan Ansbro

Katharina Boroviak

Burcu Bronner-Anar

Hannah Bruce

Chuan Cao

Emma Carpenter

Manuela Carrasquilla

Heledd Davies

Ndey Fatou Drammeh

Gareth Girling

Joa Hoshizaki

Hannah Jagoe

Krittikorn Kumpornsin

Dariya Nikitin

Megan Pierce

Frank Schwach

Riaz Shaik

Cindy Smidt

Nicole Sevilleno

Role

Post-doctoral Fellow

Advanced Research Assistant

NIH-OxCam PhD student

Senior Staff Scientist

Advanced Research Assistant

Post-doctoral Fellow

PhD student

Post-doctoral Fellow

MPhil student

Senior Research Assistant

PhD student

Post-doctoral Fellow

Advanced Research Assistant

Bioinformatician

Advanced Research Assistant

Current position

Head of R&D, Micrographia Bio, London

Scientific liason, Emulate Inc, Cambridge

Associate director, Insmed Incorporated, Cambridge

Technician commitment manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Senior researcher, Microsoft AI4Science, Beijing

Associate scientist, Agenus, Cambridge

Postdoc, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin

Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Cambridge

PhD student, MRC Gambia at LSHTM

SRA, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Computational/Molecular Biologist, Epitopia, Cambridge

Research associate, TargetMalaria, London

Research scientist, Calibr at Scrips Research, San Diego

PhD student, Imperial, London

Advanced Research Assistant, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Principal bioinformatician, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Scientist, AstraZeneca, Cambridge

Science Engagement Officer, Wellcome connecting science

Advanced Research Assistant, Wellcome Sanger Institute