Young Researcher Spotlight #1
by SciComm
Annika Malin Bruger
Annika received an undergraduate Masters in Biochemistry from the University of Bath, UK, in 2009. She then moved to the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a DPhil in 2014. Her doctoral studies at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology with Prof Oreste Acuto focussed on how the affinity of a ligand affects the early signalling events in T-cells and the subsequent ‘decision’ for activation.
Annika is currently a senior post-doctoral fellow in the group of Pro Pierre van der Bruggen at the De Duve Institute in Brussels, Belgium. The lab is interested in the ways in which T-cell functions are inhibited in cancer, and how this effect can be reversed. Since 2015, Annika concentrates on the effect of neutrophils and PMN-MDSC in lung and ovarian cancer patients on T-cell functions.
Annika was an active member of the previous COST Action Mye-EUNITER, where she organised three short-term scientific missions (STSMs). Two STSMs took place in Brussels and the participants designed a standard-operating protocol to test the suppression of T-cell proliferation by myeloid cells. The results were published in Methods in Enzymology in 2019.
As the Grant Awarding Coordinator, Annika is a member of Mye-InfoBank’s Management Committee. She co-organised the Young Researchers Virtual Workshop at Mye-InfoBank’s first meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, in February 2022. She is also one of the Action’s national representatives for Belgium.
Photo: © Annika Malin Bruger/Mye-InfoBank