Keeping it in the Family Leading immunologist, Professor Kingston Mills, and his daughter, Evanna Mills , a rising star in metabolism, talk to Trinity Today about their family connection to Trinity, research, COVID-19 vaccines and more K ingston Mills is a professor of experimental immunology in Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, and academic director of Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI). He is currently co-lead on the Trinity COVID-19 Research Hub and has served on a number of international scientific advisory panels including at the World Health Organisation. The recipient of an SFI Researcher of the Year Award and the Trinity Provost Innovation award in 2020, he heads a research team focusing on T cells in infection and autoimmunity and has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers (cited over 35,000 times). He is co-founder of three biotech companies focused on developing immuno-therapeutics for inflammatory diseases and cancer - Opsona Therapeutics, TriMod Therapeutics and Parvalis Tx. Dr Evanna Mills is a postdoctoral researcher at Dana-Faber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School and is funded by a $1m US National Institute for Health (NIH) K99 pathway to Independence award. Recently appointed to a faculty position in Harvard, she will start her own lab next March. Her research focuses on immunometabolism, in particular the role of succinate in systemic inflammation and metabolic disease. Tell us what first sparked your interest in the field of immunology? K : I did an undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Trinity and was always interested in the medical side, inspired by lecturers like John Scott, Clayton Love and Jim Mason. For my PhD, I had offers of studentships in both biochemistry and immunology. I chose immunology, working on the mechanism of graft rejection following bone marrow transplantation, and I’ve never looked back. Kingston, your wife, Professor Marina Lynch, is also a scientist. What is her area of expertise and are there any crossovers in your research? K : Marina is professor of cellular neuroscience at Trinity. We met while doing our PhDs here and we’ve shared the daily ups and downs of academic and family life. We have jointly supervised a number of PhD students and postdocs in the area of neuroimmunology.
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