Today is the last day in the Lab of Dr Umar Sharif (aka. the Great Umaro). Umar has with team Hamill for the past 6 months as maternity cover for Dr Valentina Barrera (thanks to funding from the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease in response to their Athena swan policy).

The time has been fun and productive.

Umaro made significant contributions to the immunohistochemistry portions of a manuscript that is out for review at the moment.

In addition he performed the first sets of experiments into the role of LaNt a31 in angiogenesis; generating a whole bunch of cool movies looking at vessel formation in endothelial cells where we have manipulated LaNt protein expression. The project is now nicely poised for Vale to pick up on her return later in the year and hopefully we will get those data into the public domain as well soon.

Umar obtained his PhD from the University of Liverpool in the group of Luminita Paraoan, today also therefore marks the end of 4.5 years as a student here. Realistically, his best moment wasn’t being awarded his PhD but rather his much coveted contribution cup trophy win back in season 2 of the EVS journal club.

Thanks Umar, it’s been great!