Jordan Raff

Tel.: 44-(0)1865 275533
e-mail: jordan.raff@path.ox.ac.uk
twitter: @JordanRaff

Jordan was an undergraduate in the Department of Biochemistry, Bristol (1983-1986), a PhD student with David Glover at Imperial College London (1986-1990) and a post-doc with Bruce Alberts at UCSF (1990-1994). He then started his own lab at The Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. In August 2009 Jordan relocated his lab to sunny Oxford, at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology.

 

 

Saroj Saurya

Laboratory Manager
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: saroj.saurya@path.ox.ac.uk

Saroj Saurya holds an MSc from the University of Delhi and a DPhil from the University of Oxford, completed under the supervision of Professor Jordan Raff. She began her career in sales and marketing for Promega and later for Applied Biosystems products. Saroj's academic research journey started at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge with Professor Matthew Freeman, where she studied the EGF receptor pathway in Drosophila. She then worked at the Dunn School of Pathology and the Jenner Institute in Oxford, focusing on Shigella Type III systems and the development of vaccines. She also worked with a biotech company, Oxford Biodynamics, on the development of cancer diagnostic kits. In 2010, Saroj joined Raff Lab as a post-doctoral laboratory manager and has since been investigating the centrosome assembly pathway in Drosophila. An active advocate for environmental sustainability in laboratories, Saroj is a founding member and current chair of the Dunn School Green Group, which aims to reduce the laboratory's carbon footprint. Her efforts have led to Raff Lab earning Laboratory Environmental Assessment Framework (LEAF) Gold awards for several consecutive years. In June 2023, the Dunn School labs received 100% LEAF awards and a Green Impact Gold Award, and Saroj was recognised with the 2023 Environmental Sustainability Staff Award.

 

Alan Wainman

Post-Doc
Tel.: 01865 275531
e-mail: alan.wainman@path.ox.ac.uk

Alan did his undergraduate degree at the University Cambridge (1996-1999) and was a PhD. student with David Glover (2000-2004). He then worked as a Post-doc for Maurizio Gatti (Rome) and James Wakefield (Oxford) before joining the Raff lab in Oct 2009. He also looks after the light microscopes in the Dunn School Bioimaging Facility as part of Oxford Micron.

 

 

Zsofi Novak

Post-Doc
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: zsofia.novak@path.ox.ac.uk

Zsofia did her MSc degree in Budapest, Hungary at Eotvos Lorand University and completed her diploma project in DNA repair in Matthew Whitby’s lab at the University of Oxford. She is now doing her DPhil in the Raff lab as part of the Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme in Chromosome and Developmental Biology. Zsofia is studying the dynamics of centrosomal incorporation of different proteins.

 

 

João Monteiro

Post-doc.
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: joao.monteiro@path.ox.ac.uk

João obtained his BSc in Applied Chemistry and MSc in Molecular Genetics at the New University of Lisbon. In early 2018 he earned a PhD in Biology from ITQB NOVA in Lisbon for his work in the Pinho lab, focused on the molecular mechanisms coordinating the cell cycle of pathogenic bacteria. After watching a couple of microscopy videos in the Raff lab website, João decided to move to sunny Oxford in Nov 2018 to study dynamics of centrosome assembly.

 

 

Zach Wilmott

Post-doc.
Tel.: 01865 275531
e-mail: Zachary.Wilmott@maths.ox.ac.uk

Zach did an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Oxford (2010 - 2014), and completed his DPhil in multi-phase fluid dynamics and homogenisation in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Chris Breward and Prof. Jon Chapman. He is currently working as a post-doc at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, developing mathematical models for various aspects of the centriole division process.

 

 

Nada Mohamad

Post-Doc
Tel.: 00447507905588
e-mail: nada.mohamad@path.ox.ac.uk

Nada obtained her BSc degree in Biology and then obtained an MSc degree in Cancer Biology from the Lebanese University Doctoral School of Science and Technology. She then moved to Spain where she earned her PhD in Biotechnology in September 2017. Her PhD research focused on protein complexes involved in the mRNA export signalling pathways and was completed in the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia where she trained as a Structural/ Protein Biochemist. In February 2019, Nada started a post-doc position at the University of Oxford in the labs of Prof. J. Vakonakis and Dr. M. Bublitz during which she worked on developing new methodological approaches for membrane protein structure determination. Nada then joined the Raff lab and Lea lab on February 2020 on a Welcome Trust project collaboration. Currently she is working on understanding proteins crucial in centrosome assembly.

 

 

Chia-Chun Chang

Post-Doc
Tel.: 01865 275531
e-mail: chia.chang@path.ox.ac.uk

Chia-Chun obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Animal Science and Technology at National Taiwan University. He has been investigating a membraneless structure, the cytoophidium, throughout his PhD (2012-2017) at National Taiwan University and his first Post-doc (2019-2021) in Ji-Long Liu Lab at ShanghaiTech University. Chia-Chun joined Raff Lab in 2022 and is now working on the dynamics of centrosome assembly in fly embryos.

 

 

Isaac Wong

Post-Doc
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: isaac.wong@path.ox.ac.uk

Isaac earned his BSc in Biochemistry from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2012-2016). During his undergraduate study, Isaac visited Taiwan thrice to work on ubiquitin and neural development in Ruey-hwa Chen’s lab. He has now become a member of Raff’s team as a 4-year DPhil student, working on centriole dynamics in Drosophila embryo.

 

 

Emma Roberts

Post-Doc
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: emma.roberts@path.ox.ac.uk

Emma did her undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (2013-2016). She carried out her PhD in Paul Nurse's lab at the Francis Crick Institute (2017-2022), where she studied cell cycle regulation using fission yeast as a model system. She joined the Raff lab as a post-doc in 2023, where she will study how the cell cycle regulates centriole and centrosome biogenesis.

 

 

Nic Liew

DPhil.
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: nicole.liew@stcatz.ox.ac.uk

Nicole graduated from Homerton College, Cambridge reading Biological Natural Science in 2018. She has also worked in Imperial College London on a zebrafish parasitic infection disease model. She is now in the Raff lab as part of the Wellcome Trust Development and Chromosome Biology DPhil program, working on the processes governing centriole dynamics in Drosophila embryos

 

 

Poppy Holland-Kaye

DPhil. Rotation Student
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: ingelise.holland-kaye@reuben.ox.ac.uk

Poppy graduated from the University of York in 2022, where she obtained an MSc in Molecular Cell Biology. She is currently doing a rotation in the Raff lab as part of the BBSRC funded Interdisciplinary Bioscience DPhil course. Poppy’s research focusses on understanding the structural basis of interactions between centriole proteins.

 

 

Min Peng

Visiting student
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: min.peng@path.ox.ac.uk

Min is a PhD student studying a membraneless structure, the cytoophidium, at National Taiwan University. She is currently further enriching her academic experience through a visiting student program with the Raff Lab, where she is dedicated to exploring centrosome assembly in the Drosophila embryo.

 

 

Lorena Blaya Martinez

Biochemistry 4th year
Tel.: 01865 275532
e-mail: lorena.blaya@hertford.ox.ac.uk

Lorena is a fourth year Biochemistry student at Oxford University. For Part II of her Integrated Master's degree, she is joining the Raff Lab for a one-year project studying centrosome assembly in the Drosophila embryo.