New Cross-Title Reviews Editor

Hi everyone!

My name is Katie Pickup and I’ve just joined The Company of Biologists as a new Reviews Editor. I will be working with FocalPlane and Journal of Cell Science, but my role also involves working across the Company’s other journals: Disease Models & Mechanisms, Development and Journal of Experimental Biology. I’m really looking forward to the wide variety of research this will expose me to, and am very reassured that leaving the lab will not mean leaving behind stunning microscopy images!

Microscopes were a huge part of what drove me towards working with cells. An undergraduate group practical at the University of York introduced me to fluorescence microscopy, and that inspired me to continue with tissue culture-based lab work. I spent a year in Professor Miguel Beato’s lab at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, investigating the generation of nuclear ATP from poly-ADP-ribose in response to progesterone signalling in breast cancer.

I then went on to do my PhD at the MRC Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh with Professor Richard Meehan. My project involved using 3D embryonic stem cell-based models of differentiation to determine how lineage trajectories are impacted in the absence of DNA methylation. I really enjoyed the opportunities I had to perform microscopy during my PhD and was really lucky to have a fantastic imaging facility at my institute providing technical support and a huge array of microscopes to choose from.

Even though I’ve left the lab I’m really excited to be able to keep up with research across cell and molecular biology in development, disease and beyond. I’m thoroughly looking forward to attending conferences in topics across the biosciences and working with authors on review-type articles. I can’t wait to get to know the community better and I’ll hopefully meet some of you soon! In the meantime, feel free to get in touch via email, LinkedIn or Twitter. 

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