Meet the Network Committee
The network is run by a committee of fellows who represent many of our major fellowship programmes. The committee set the direction of the network, organise the workshops, evaluate feedback and help connect our members.
Lorna Daniels
Lorna is a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellow based at Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism (Radcliffe Department of Medicine). Working in collaboration with Novo Nordisk, the focus of her fellowship is to investigate circadian regulation of liver energy metabolism in diabetes. Lorna joined the Committee as she is very interested in helping drive links between academia and industry.
Andrew Foers
Andrew is an Oxford-Janssen fellow based at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. He was an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne and then completed a PhD at WEHI, and a subsequent postdoc at University of Cambridge. Applying both wet and dry lab skillsets, Andy's current work is focussed on identifying pathogenic processes in auto-inflammatory uveitis.
Nan Yang
Nan joined Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology (Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology & Musculoskeletal Sciences) in January 2019, investigating Fibrosis and Tissue Regeneration in relation to Dupuytren’s disease. In March 2020, she began an Oxford-BMS Fellowship in the same group, focussing on liver fibrosis. Beyond the lab, Nan is a member of the Public Engagement Committee for the Society for Endocrinology.
Dragana Savic
Dragana is a Biomedical Engineer by training with a Doctorate in Physiology. She is currently a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Fellow studying the metabolism and function of the heart and the liver in Radcliffe Department of Medicine. Dragana is excited about joining the Industry Fellows & Postdocs Network, and is looking forward to the opportunities that can be created for researchers across at the University.
Janina Nahler
Janina is an Oxford-Janssen fellow based at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (Radcliffe Department of Medicine). She completed her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh before doing a DPhil in Medical Sciences at the University of Oxford. Her current research as part of the Oxford-Janssen Cartography project focuses on investigating pathogenic pathways underlying skin inflammatory diseases.
Shilpa Nagarajan
Shilpa is a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism (Radcliffe Department of Medicine). She is a lipid physiologist focused on the hepatic manifestations of metabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease. Shilpa has an interest in research translation and innovation and is keen to help increase industry engagement for early career researchers.
Shing Zhan
Shing is a Janssen-Oxford Translational Genomics Fellow based at the Big Data Institute. He is developing scalable computational methods and software tools to analyse population-scale genomic data from biobank studies. Previously, he completed his part-time PhD at the University of British Columbia in bioinformatics with a focus on ecology and evolution. During his PhD, he was concurrently building and managing a biotech startup (which he advises and is now in its eighth year of existence) that makes metagenomics-based assays for infectious diseases. He also has a keen interest in entrepreneurship and machine learning in healthcare.
Dafni Gyftaki-Venieri
Dafni holds a BSc in Genetics from Glasgow University with an MRes in Biomedical Sciences and a PhD in Rheumatology and Connective Tissue Diseases from UCL. She is currently an Oxford-BMS fellow based at NDORMS, using cell-matrix ecosystems to define disease progression and treatment response in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and scleroderma. Dafni is interested in forming collaborations between industry and academia to better understand and provide treatments for human diseases.
Ranjeet Mahla
Ranjeet is an Oxford BMS fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, supervised by Professor Lynn B Dustin. He is exploring autoreactive B cells in Sjogren syndrome (SS). SS is the second most common autoimmune rheumatic disease after rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The SS systemic condition is characterized by infiltration of autoreactive B cells in salivary and lacrimal glands and the presence of antibodies against ubiquitously expressed self-antigens such as TRIM21, TROVE2, La, scl70, and other extractable nuclear antigens. Using the multi-omics approach, Ranjeet is characterizing the heterogenicity and dynamicity of autoreactive B cells in salivary glands and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy controls and Sjogren syndrome patients. His aim is to understate how autoreactive B cells escape the self-tolerance mechanism and identify new therapeutic targets.