Ben Jones

Clinical Senior Lecturer, Group Leader

• Ben Jones is a clinical senior lecturer and group leader. After training as a doctor he did his PhD at Imperial College with Steve Bloom and Tricia Tan, focussing on the GLP-1 receptor biology. He made some of the early discoveries about the role of biased agonism as a way to improve the therapeutic targeting of the GLP-1R in pancreatic islets, and has continued to expand this work to GLP-1R in other systems, and to other metabolically relevant GPCRs.

Murray Polkinghorne

Postdoc

• Murray is originally from South Africa and joined the lab in 2024 after completing his DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof Charalambos Antoniades and Prof Keith Channon. His previous experience includes an MPhil in Translational Biomedical Research at the University of Cambridge, an MBChB (MD) at the University of Cape Town, and a visiting research fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, USA. He is now investigating the receptor biology and molecular pharmacology of the GIP receptor to discover novel therapies for obesity and other metabolic diseases.

Paulo Saldanha

Postdoc

• Paulo is originally from Portugal where he did his undergraduate and master degrees in Biochemistry at University of Beira Interior, Covilhã. He was part of two Marie Curie ITN Networks under the supervision of Professor Romuald Mentaverri, Amiens, France and Professor Guillermo Zalba, Pamplona, Spain. In 2018 he joined the Hull York Medical School where he completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr Francisco Rivero and Dr Leonid Nikitenko. He has a strong background of molecular biology techniques and previous experiments with animal models. He joined Professor Steve Bloom and Dr Ben Jones laboratory to study the receptor biology of calcitonin and calcitonin-like receptor families in metabolic diseases.

Iona Davies

Postdoc

• After completing her undergraduate degree in Cells and Systems Biology at the University of Oxford, Iona joined Tricia Tan’s lab in 2020 to undergo a master’s degree in Clinical Research. Iona continued on in Prof Tan’s lab to begin her MRC Doctoral Training Partnership in 2021, co-supervised by Ben Jones, focussing on tissue specific GIPR signalling. 

Billy Baxter

Postdoc

• Billy joined the group in 2024 after completing his PhD in respiratory pharmacology at Imperial College London. He has a strong background in pharmacological characterisation and is currently investigating the biased pharmacology of receptors implicated in metabolic disease.

Carissa Wong

PhD Student

• Carissa first joined the lab in 2021 for her master’s degree in Clinical Research after completing her BSc in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Manchester. She briefly transitioned into industry, working for a Clinical Research Organisation after her master’s, before returning in 2024 for her PhD, focusing on the study of the pharmacology of anorectic gut hormone-derived treatments, including biased and combination therapies.

Olivier Cahn

PhD Student

• After finishing his undergraduate studies in Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester, and an MPhil in Basic and Translational Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, Olivier joined the Jones Lab in hopes to further our understanding of the effects of bias on GLP-1R agonist penetration, signalling and efficacy in the CNS.

Alex Turland

PhD Student

• Alex is looking into Peptide tyrosine tyrosine 3-36 (PYY 3-36) and its potential as an effective anti-obesity treatment. She will be exploring the concept of biased signalling within the neuropeptide Y (NPY) receptor family to discover new drug responses that could provide new therapeutic options. Her work includes characterising ligand-receptor interactions to improve mechanistic understanding and inform drug design. She is also investigating methods to improve the proteolytic stability of PYY 3-36, which is crucial for it's clinical use. 

Hanh Duyen Tran

PhD Student

• Following the completion of her undergraduate research assistant role in Reproductive Physiology at King’s College London and BSc in Biomedical Sciences at St. George’s University of London, Hanh Duyen joined the Jones Lab in 2024 to pursue her postgraduate doctoral studies at Imperial College London. Her research project involves the investigation of biased signalling at the glucacon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor in vitro and in vivo to delineate the molecular signatures that drive its therapeutic benefits.

Eunice Liew

RA

• Following her undergraduate at UCL and her work as a research assistant in Cambridge, Eunice is joining the lab where she will be assisting in the study of biased signalling of incretin hormones and their potential therapeutic applications in obesity and other metabolic diseases.

Shiqian Chen

2020-2024
Role: PhD student

Yiming Zuo

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Jun Pang

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Leyan Zhang

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Lin Qian

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Meixuan Wu

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Xun Xie

2023-2024
Role: MRes

Junyu Pan

2023-2024
Role: MRes