The Team

Helen joined the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Leeds as Lecturer in cryo-electron Tomography in August 2025. She gained extensive training in structural, cellular and molecular biology techniques throughout her career, which began as a PhD student in Andrew Carter’s lab at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge and continued as a postdoctoral researcher in Gaia Pigino’s lab, initially at the MPI-CBG in Dresden and then at the Human Technopole in Milan. She works at the interface of structural and cell biology, combining biochemical approaches with advanced imaging to understand how molecular machines work in their cellular context. Her research focusses on how nanoscale changes in the cytoskeleton drive cellular transformations, and she is particularly interested in uncovering how these mechanisms contribute to a properly functioning immune system.