School of Medicine

Maria performed her PhD studies from 2008 until 2012 in the laboratories of Dr Ian Humphreys and Professor Gavin Wilkinson. The PhD viva was held on 5^th October 2012 with Dr Stacey Efstathiou from Cambridge University and Professor Susan Wong from the Institute of Molecular Medicine servingas external and internal examiners, respectively.

Maria has already published some of her findings from her PhD and was the recipient of several prizes during her time as a PhD student:

• 2^nd prize for oral presentation at the Institute of Infection and Immunity Annual Meeting (Sept 2012)
• 1^st prize for poster presentation at BSI congress (Dec 2011)
• Finalist in BSI Young Immunologist and finalist in BSI Bright Sparks (Dec 2010)
• 2^nd prize for oral presentation at Post-Grad Research Day (Nov 2009)
• 2^nd prize for oral presentation at Speaking of Science conference (April 2009

Maria will now continue her studies into the cytokine biology of cytomegalovirus infection with a Wellcome Trust-funded postdoctoral position within the Humphreys laboratory.

• Herpesvirus exploitation of host immune inhibitory pathways. Stack G, Stacey MA, Humphreys IR. Viruses. 2012 Aug;4(8):1182-201.
• IL-10 restricts activation-induced death of NK cells during acute murine cytomegalovirus infection. Stacey MA, Marsden M, Wang EC, Wilkinson GW, Humphreys IR. J Immunol. 2011 Sep 15;187(6):2944-52
• IL-10 restricts memory T cell inflation during cytomegalovirus infection. Jones M, Ladell K, Wynn KK, Stacey MA, Quigley MF, Gostick E, Price DA, Humphreys IR. J Immunol. 2010 Sep 15;185(6):3583-92.