DrNadia Guerra

Dr Guerra is a Tenured Associate Professor and head of the "Inflammation and Cancer Immunity" lab in the Department of Life Sciences.  

She is a CRI-Esther M. Baird Technology Impact Award Investigator since 2024 and Wellcome Trust Research Fellow (2009-2015). She serves on the advisory board of Cytospire Therapeutics.

Her research investigates the physiological role of Natural Killer (NK) cell receptors in the development of immunopathology and cancer (Blood 2013, Cell Reports 2018).  Her early work demonstrated the inhibitory function of KIR receptors on CD8+T cells infiltrating kidney cancer (Blood 2000, Cancer Research 2001).  She also provided the first evidence for the role of the activating receptor NKG2D in tumour rejection in vivo (Immunity 2008, Nat. Rev. Immune 2009) and its contribution to inflammatory diseases and autoimmunity (JCI 2024, JACI 2013, Circulation 2011).

Recently, her group demonstrated a tumour-promoting role for NKG2D in the context of inflammation-driven cancers (Nature Communications 2017, Frontiers in Immunology 2018, Discovery Immunology 2022, Cancers 2023, J. of Hepatology 2021). This discovery challenges the paradigm that NKG2D functions exclusively as a tumour suppressor. Also, through a proof-of-concept project supported by AstraZeneca, the team has been exploring therapeutic strategies to target NKG2D in liver cancer. 

The lab employs cutting-edge multi-photon imaging combined with novel mouse models to investigate NK cell behaviour during chronic inflammation, advancing our understanding of their role in cancer progression.

Her work also focuses on the development of a nanopore platform for moniotring cancer and immune biomarkers during Immunotherapies in cancer patients, in close collaboration with the lab of Joshua Edel and Aleksandar Ivanov (Technology Impact Award -CRI, USA). Former collaborations produced cutting-edge technologies including Ab-coated nanographene for enhanced NK cell activation (Adv. Healthc. Mat. 2024) and haemoglobin quantification (Adv. Healthc. Mat. 2014) leading to an anemia and cancer diagnostic device (Entia Ltd).  

****NEWS**************************************************************************

Follow our lab on Twitter @guerra_lab
https://nkimmuno.wixsite.com/guerralab

* Feb 2025 - Congratulations to Oyku Ozcan for a brilliant PhD thesis viva !

* Jan 2025 - Nadia Guerra gave a plenary talk at the UK-NK workshop - University of Oxford UK

* 2024 Nadia Guerra is awarded a Cancer Research Institute (CRI) - Esther M. Baird Technology Impact Award Investigator. This collaborative project aims to develop a novel platform for the detection of cancer biomarkers with Prof Joshua Edel and Dr Aleksander Ivanov in the dept. of Chemistry; Dr Chaidos in the Faculty of Medicine and colleagues at UCL, Dr. Mala Maini, Prof Tim Meyer and Dr. Gloryanne Aidoo-Micah

* Oct 2024 - Seshagiri Sakthimani is joining the Guerra and Edel Lab (Dept. Chemistry) for his PhD training. He will be working towards developing an innovative nano platform for the detection of cancer biomarkers

* Renata Oliveira de Vasconcelos has successfully defended her PhD viva - April 2024

* Helena Dodd graduated!! May 2023 Congratulations Helena and all the best in your new position as Senior Scientific Officer within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at the Home office!

* Nadia gave a talk at the Annual meeting of the British Society for Immunology on Dec 2022

*Fort Myers, Florida May 2022 - Nadia gave a talk on NKG2D function in Cancer Immunity at the NK2022 conference.

*London Oct 2021 - Nadia gave a talk discussing the potential of NKG2D ligands as biomarkers in liver cancer - Immune UK Oxford global conference.

* Sophie Curio graduated!!! we wish her all the best in her next endeavour -a postdoc at the University of Queensland, Australia in Gabriel Belz lab.

*A 3year Ph.D studentship is available in the Guerra's Lab to work on a project entitled: "Regulation of the death-inducing ligand TRAIL and its impact on inflamm-ageing".

Deadline: April 5th 2021

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/regulation-of-the-death-inducing-ligand-trail-and-its-impact-on-inflamm-ageing/?p130178

* A 4-year Ph.D fellowship is available in the Guerra Lab to work on a cross-disciplinary project entitled: "Development of a deep learning-based approach to characterise the immune landscape in liver cancer" in collaboration with Dr Yinyin Yuan (Institute of Cancer Research) and David Pinato (Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine). Deadline: Friday, November 22, 2019 apply here
*Sophie Curio, a final year PhD student in Nadia Guerra’s lab, successfully obtained a Stevenson fund to undertake a 3-month research project abroad. She has joined the lab of Rachel Purcell at the University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand, to study the relationship between the microbiome and mucosal immunity and its impact on intestinal cancer.
* Ph.D. student Helena Dodd gave a talk at the 9th Annual NK/UK workshop to discuss her progress on the use of nanomaterial to improve NK cell activation. UCL Jan 2020.

* Nadia has been chairing the session on "Emerging functions of non-classical lymphocytes" at the Annual Congress of the British Society for Immunology (BSI) on Dec 5th 2019.

* Nadia Guerra gave a plenary talk at the 2nd Annual Congress in Advances in Immuno-Oncology UK May 2019 to discuss the potential of targeting NK cells and NKG2D in cancer patients.

* Master student Gustav Jonsson gave a talk at the 8th Annual NK/UK workshop to discuss his exciting results on imaging NK cell/tumor cell interaction at the single-cell level. Cambridge Jan 2019

* Ph.D. student Sophie Curio successfully obtained the prestigious Stevenson fund to visit the lab of Dr. Rachel Purcellat the University of Otago, New Zealand where she will study the impact of NKG2D on the gut microbiome. May 2019

*Guerra lab wins the xmas quiz 2018!! Success attributed to an international team composed of German, French, Austrian, Greek, Swedish and British lab members.

* In collaboration with the Dunlop lab (Department of Materials), the Guerra lab is offering a Ph.D. fellowship from the Institute of Chemical Biology to investigate the use of nanoparticles to improve the anti-tumor function of Natural Killer cells. Apply here.

*May 2018- Gustav Jonsson, post-graduate researcher in the Guerra Lab was awarded a prestigious award from The Society of Swedish Engineers in Great Britain" (SIS) to pursue his work on imaging NK cell/Tumour cell interaction using a novel microwell chip technology developed by our collaborator Professor Björn Önfelt from KTH, Stockholm.

Gustav was handed the award by the Swedish ambassador H E MR. Torbjörn Sohlström and delegate Mr. Per-Olof Emanuelsson whom he met at the Swedish embassy after giving a seminar to the SIS delegation at Imperial College
* The Guerra Lab will partner with AstraZeneca to explore the feasibility of manipulating the NKG2D axis in particular model of liver cancer.

* On June 26th 2017, Nadia gave a talk at the European Association for Cancer Research / American Association for Cancer Research/ Italian Cancer Society (EACR-AACR-SIC) special conference on The Challenges of Optimising Immuno and Targeted Therapies: From cancer Biology to the Clinic" that gathered over 850 scientists in Firenze, Italy.

* Nov 2017, Nadia engaged in a group discussion on key priorities in cancer research with high school students during the Creative Quarter Exhibition organised by the Cancer Research UK.
* May 7th 2017 - Imperial Festival celebration at South Kensington campus. Nadia Guerra joins forces with the CRUK team to discuss novel therapeutic strategies against Cancer.
* On April 11th 2017, Joana Guedes successfully defended her Ph.D viva entitled "Role of NKG2D in models of liver inflammation and tumorigenesis" in front of examiners Dr. Keith Gould (ICL) and Prof. Mala Maini (UCL)

* Joana presented orally her work at the 7th annual NK-UK meeting held at UCL on January 2017.
* PhD student Sam Sheppard has now joined the lab of Dr. Joseph Sun at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY for his post-doctoral training. Oct 2016

* Dr. Guerra was invited to present recent findings of the lab on the novel role of NKG2D in Hepatocellular Carcinoma at the 16th annual meeting of the Society for Natural Immunity in Taormina, Sicily - Oct 2016.

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Students (Ph.D or Post-doc level) interested in joining the lab should email their resume and cover letter to Dr Guerra (n.guerra@imperial.ac.uk)