Welcome to the McGovern lab
Techniques we use to understand cell biology
Team
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Naomi McGovern, PhD
I obtained my BSc in Biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and my PhD at the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK.
I carried out my postdocs in the laboratories of Prof. Matthew Colin, University of Newcastle, UK and Dr, Florent Ginhoux, Singapore Immunology Network, Singapore. There we characterised dendritc cell, monocyte and macrophage subsets across a range of human adult and fetal tissues. In Singapore I was awarded an ASTAR Young Investigator Award.
I established my lab in the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge in 2017 when I was awarded a Sir Henry Dale and Royal Society Fellowship. In 2023 I was awarded the ERC Consolidator Awar, funded by UKRI.
Joseph (Joe) Hutton
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PhD student | MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow
Joe grew up in Oxford and completed his undergraduate medical training and Immunology BSc at the University of Bristol. He completed his foundation years training in the Severn Deanery, including additional roles as Foundation Education Fellow before working as a medical registrar and rheumatology research fellow in the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
He returned to the UK as a NIHR academic rheumatology research fellow, and obtained funding from the Evelyn Trust and MRC for his PhD exploring the role of monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells in a common immune-mediated inflammatory disease, psoriatic arthritis. He hopes to enable the development of new selective therapies to stop immune cell infiltration to diseased tissues.
Osteoclasts (bone macrophages)
Atrik Saha, MSc
Atrik obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology from VIT University, India, followed by a Master of Science in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from the University of Manchester, graduating with Distinction. His training bridges computational biology and systems-level analysis, with a strong focus on single-cell and other omics technologies.
His research experience spans multiple areas, including investigating the evolutionary dynamics of trophectoderm and early placental cells using single-cell RNA-sequencing, and modeling bacterial promoter fitness landscapes through statistical thermodynamic simulations. During his undergraduate studies, he also contributed to projects in cancer genomics and in-silico drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease.
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Atrik joined the McGovern Lab in October 2024 as a Research Laboratory Technician. He is currently involved in analysing single-cell RNA-seq datasets.
UMAP visualisation of synoival cells
Qian Li, PhD
Qian utilises and develops bioinformatic approaches to study placenta development and decidua biology
Martin Potts, PhD
Martin obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford, initially working on manipulation of host nucleases by influenza A virus at the Dunn School of Pathology.
He then moved to the University of Cambridge to undertake a PhD project in the Department of Medicine, where he developed a novel proteomic methodology to characterise the secretory immune response of primary immune cells when co-cultured with cells infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). After a pandemic interlude working on numerous COVID clinical immunology studies, he then undertook a post-doctoral position in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR). At CIMR he carried out a comprehensive proteomic and transcriptomic characterisation of Mpox infection in human cells, identifying novel viral immune evasion strategies that could be targeted for therapeutic intervention.
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Martin joined the McGovern lab as a post-doc in 2024 and his current work focuses on developing a methodology for differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into cells resembling fetal macrophages, Hofbauer cells.
Hofbauer cells
Julia Aleksandrowicz, MRes, PhD candidate
Julia obtained her BSc (Hons) in Biological and Medical Sciences from the University of Liverpool. During her undergraduate project, she investigated how laboratory handling practices influence the genetic diversity and virulence of the serotype 2 D39 strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae.
She went on to complete an MRes in Infectious Diseases at the University of Edinburgh, where her research focused on sex differences in macrophage responses to Staphylococcus aureus infection in Drosophila melanogaster. Following this, Julia worked as a research assistant with the Regan and Obbard groups, studying how sex influences S. aureus infection outcomes in obesity-induced D. melanogaster.
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In October 2024, Julia joined the McGovern group in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge as a PhD student. Her current research focuses on the interaction between Listeria monocytogenes and Hofbauer cells across gestation.
Image of macrophages infected with Listeria monocytogenes
Emy Bosseboeuf
Emy Bosseboeuf did her Master's degree of Research and Engineering in Biology of Health at the University of Poitiers (France), specialising in Physiology, Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Biology.
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From 2019 to 2023, she joined Dr Claudio Raimondi lab as a Research Technician (First at the Imperial College of London, then at the Queen Mary University of London), where she worked on understanding the role of Neuropilin-1 in the endothelial function.
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Wanting to expand her laboratory techniques, in 2023, she joined Dr Anissa Chikh as a Research Technician at St George's University of London, where she worked on understanding the intracellular trafficking of iRhom2.
Then, she joined Dr Blerina Ahmetaj-Shala in 2024 as a Research Assistant at the Imperial College London, where she worked on understanding the impact of Statins on endothelial function of people with Type-1 Diabetes.
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Emy Bosseboeuf joined the Dr. McGovern lab as a Research Assistant in 2025, where she works on the placenta and organoids.
HBC in 1st trimester placental villous, immunostained with anti-CD14 (black arrow). Syncytiotrophoblast overlying villous core is clearly visible (blue arrow).
Isabel Marchand-Casas, MSc, PhD candidate
Isabel received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018, majoring in Environment & Public Health with a minor in Nutritional Sciences. From 2019 to 2021, as part of her MSc degree in Biomedical Sciences, she researched inhibitor compounds of the coronavirus entry process in Lieve Naesens' group at the Rega Institue, KU Leuven.
From 2021 to 2024, she worked at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego under the supervision of Dr. Pandurangan Vijayanand, investigating T-cell specificity in infection contexts.
Isabel joined the McGovern lab in October 2024 and is a recipient of the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research PhD studentship award. She is investigating the molecular mechanisms deployed by Hofbauer cells within the context of congenital cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection, co-supervised with Dr. Emma Poole.
Mahlaqua Mila Noor, PhD
Mahlaqua earned her PhD in Immunology and Infection from the University of Cambridge in 2024 funded by Gates Cambridge Trust. Her PhD work focused on Natural Killer cell responses to cytomegalovirus infection in healthy adults.
In the McGovern lab she is excited to continue her work on understanding the pathogenesis of cytomegalovirus infection. Her research investigates the immunopathogenesis of congenital cytomegalovirus infection at the maternal-fetal interface using placental organoids and human trophoblast stem cell models with the aim to develop robust biomarkers and antiviral interventions, ultimately improving maternal and fetal health outcomes. Her research journey has taken her from Germany to the US and the UK but when she is not pipetting away in the lab, you will find her hiking trials, running laps, teaching, hunting down the best local cafés, and nerding out over all things biosecurity and pandemic policy-making.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mila-mahlaqua-noor-phd-25107318b/
Trophoblast organoids
Caitlin Duncan, MSc, PhD candidate
Caitlin earned her BSc in Biomedical Science from the University of Liverpool, during which she worked in an NHS COVID-19 testing laboratory and completed a research project assessing the potential of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for breast cancer diagnosis. She went on to pursue an MRes in Oncology at the University of Manchester, where her research focused on investigating the effects of hypoxia in preclinical models of triple-negative breast cancer.
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After completing her MRes, Caitlin joined a Cambridge-based biotechnology company, where she contributed to assay development and target validation for early-stage drug discovery projects.
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In 2024, Caitlin began her PhD in the McGovern Lab at the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on elucidating the role of macrophages in endometrial carcinoma, using organoid models, single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics.
Trophoblast organoids
Key Publications
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* Joint First author, # Corresponding author
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Primitive haematopoiesis in the human placenta gives rise to macrophages with epigenetically silenced HLA-DR. #. Nature Communications (2023) PMID: 36997537
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Subset-defining markers reveal the phenotype and functional properties of human embryonic macrophages, Hofbauer cells. Thomas JR, Appios A, Zhao X, Dutkiewicz R, Donde M, Lee C, Naidu P, Lee C, Cerveira J, Liu B, Ginhoux F, Burton G, Hamilton R.S, Moffett A, Sharkey A, #. (2021) PMID: 33075123
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Isolation of First-Trimester and Full-Term Human Placental Hofbauer cells. Appios A , JR, McGovern N#. BioProtocol (2021) PMID: 34250210
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Human foetal dendritic cells promote prenatal T-cell immune suppression through arginase-2. McGovern N, Shin A, Low G, D, Duan K, Yao LJ, Msallam R, Low Shadan NB, Sumatoh HR, Soon E, Lum J, Mok E, Hubert S, See P, Kunxiang EH, Lee YH, Janela B, Choolani M, Mattar CNZ, Fan Y, Lim TKH, Chan DKH, Tan KK, Tam JKC, Schuster C, Elbe-Bürger A, Wang XN, Bigley V, Collin M, Haniffa M, SchlitzerA, Poidinger M, Albani S, Larbi A, Newell EW, Chan JKY, Ginhoux F. (2017). PMID:28614294
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Unsupervised High-Dimensional Analysis Aligns Dendritic Cells across Tissues Species. Guilliams M*, Dutertre CA*, Scott CL*, McGovern N*, Sichien D, Chakarov S, Van Gassen S, Chen J, Poidinger M, De Prijck S, Tavernier SJ, Irac SE, Mattar CN, Sumatoh HR, Low GHL, Chung TJK, Chan DKH, Tan KK, Hon TLK, Fossum E, Bogen B, Choolani M, Chan JKY, Larbi A, Luche Henri S, Saeys Y, Newell EW, Lambrecht BN, Malissen B, Ginhoux F. (2016).PMID:27637149
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Human Dermal CD14Cells Are a Transient Population of Monocyte-Derived Macrophages. McGovern N*, Schlitzer A*, Gunawan M, Jardine L, Shin A, Poyner E, Green K, Dickinson R, Wang XN, Low D, Best K, Covins S, Milne P, Pagan S, AljefriK, Windebank M, Miranda-Saavedra D, Larbi A, Wasan PS, Duan K, Poidinger M, Bigley V, Ginhoux F, Collin M, Haniffa M. (2014).PMID:25200712
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A Three-Dimensional Atlas of Human Dermal Leukocytes, Lymphatics, and Blood Vessels. Wang XN, McGovern N, Gunawan M, Richardson C, Windebank M, Siah TW, Lim HY, Fink K, Yao Li JL, Ng LG, Ginhoux F, Angeli V, Collin M, Haniffa M. (2014).PMID:24352044
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IRF4 transcription factor-dependent CD11b+ dendritic cells in human and mousecontrol mucosal IL-17 cytokine responses. Schlitzer A*, McGovern N*, Teo P, Zelante T, Atarashi K, Low D, Ho AW, See P, Shin A, Wasan PS, Hoeffel G, Malleret B, Heiseke A, Chew S, Jardine L, Purvis HA, Hilkens CM, Tam J, Poidinger M, Stanley ER, Krug AB, Renia L, Sivasankar B, Ng LG, Collin M, Ricciardi-Castagnoli P, Honda K,Haniffa M, Ginhoux F. (2013).PMID:23706669
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Human tissues contain CD141cross-presenting dendritic cells with functional homology to mouse CD103nonlymphoid dendritic cells. Haniffa M, Shin A, Bigley V, McGovern N, Teo P, See P, Wasan PS, Wang XN, Malinarich F, Malleret B, Larbi A, Tan P, Zhao H, Poidinger M, Pagan S, Cookson S, Dickinson R, Dimmick Jarrett RF, Renia L, Tam J, Song C, Connolly J, Chan JK, Gehring A, Bertoletti A, Collin M, Ginhoux F. (2012).PMID:22795876
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Hypoxia selectively inhibits respiratory burst activity killing of Staphylococcus aureus in human neutrophils. McGovern N, Cowburn AS, Porter L, Walmsley SR, Summers C, Thompson AAR, Anwar S, Willcocks LC, Whyte MKB, CondliffeAM, Chilvers ER. (2011).PMID:21135168
Literature reviews:
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The ontogeny and function of placental macrophages. Thomas JR, Naidu P, Appios A, McGovern N. (2021). PMID: 34745147
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Protocols for the Identification and Isolation of Antigen-Presenting Cells in Humanand Mouse Tissues. , Schlitzer A, Janela B, Ginhoux F.(2016).PMID:27142016
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Dendritic cells in humans - from fetus to adult. , Chan JK, GinhouxF. International Immunology (2015). PMID:25323843
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Dendritic cells and monocyte-derived cells: Two complementary andintegrated functional systems. Schlitzer A, Ginhoux F. (2015).PMID:25957517
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Human dendritic cell subsets. Collin M, Haniffa M. (2013). PMID:23621371
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The HIF/VHL pathway: from oxygen sensing to innate immunity. Walmsley S, , Whyte MK, Chilvers ER. (2008). PMID:17932373
Lab Photos
Lab photo before Christmas lunch 2023
Lab photo between COVID lockdowns 2020
Previous Lab members
Nagisa Yoshida (PDRA)
Holly Anderson (Lab manager)
Jake R. Thomas (PhD candidate)
​Anna Appios (PhD candidate)
Praveena Naidu (MSc)
Roksana Dutkiewicz (Lab manager)
Location
Address
Department of Pathology,
Tennis Court Road,
Cambridge,
CB2 1QP
Funders
ERC award funded by UKRI
