Lab Members
Glenn Masson
Group Leader
Glenn is a group leader in the Division of Cellular Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of Dundee, and the Post-Graduate Research lead for the Division also. Glenn received his undergraduate degree from the University of Sheffield and his PhD from the University of Cambridge, conducting his research in the Roger Williams’ Lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB). He was a Junior Research Fellow at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and then had an MRC Post-doc at the MRC-LMB before starting the group in July 2020.
He is a keen vegetable gardener, likes to make cider and hedgerow wines, listens to TMS, and sometimes mucks about on boats. He also forages for mushrooms and hasn’t poisoned himself yet.
email [email protected]
Vanesa Vinciauskaite
PhD Student (Joined September 2021)
Vanesa joins the lab from Maastricht University as a student funded by an MRC iCase DTP student in partnership with AstraZeneca. Vanesa will be looking at developing extremely rapid HDX-MS as a means of screening small molecules against proteins with intrinsic disorder.
Graham Neill
PhD Student (Joined April 2022)
Graham joins the lab working closely with the Drug Discovery Unit Molecular Interactions group down at the School of Life Sciences. He will be using HDX-MS to determine how small molecule activators of GCN2 function and whether their mode of action is distinct from biological activators.
Tybalt
Lab Cat (Adopted December 2021)
Adopted from Edinburgh Zoo in December 2021, Tybalt, the prince of cats, is a Scottish Wildcat. Tybalt represents the tenacity and fierce approach the GRM lab has to cutting-edge science.
HMS Willamina Fleming
Waters Select Cyclic IMS (Joined December 2021)
Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometer (HMS) Williamina Fleming is named in honour of Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming (15 May 1857- 21 May 1911). Fleming was a Scottish astronomer, born in Dundee, who emigrated to Boston in the United States at age 23. While at the Harvard College Observatory, Fleming made several important discoveries.
During her career, she helped develop a common designation system for stars and catalogued thousands of stars and other astronomical phenomena. Fleming was one of the founding members of the Harvard Computers, an all-women cadre of human computers hired to compute mathematical classifications and edit the observatory’s publications. In her early career, her work was repeatedly attributed to others, however, the magnitude of her discoveries ensured correct recognition in her later life. Among several career achievements that advanced astronomy, Fleming is credited for the discovery of the Horsehead Nebula in 1888, and the first white dwarf star in 1910. In total, Fleming discovered 59 nebulae, 310 variable stars, and 10 novae.
Fleming openly advocated for other women in the sciences. She addressed thousands of attendees at her talk “A Field for Woman’s Work in Astronomy” at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, where she argued that women and men were equals and there existed a sexist culture that prevented the advancement of women in science. In 1906, she was made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, the first Scottish woman to be so honoured. Soon after she was appointed honorary fellow in astronomy of Wellesley College. Shortly before her death of pneumonia in 1911, the Astronomical Society of Mexico awarded her the Guadalupe Almendaro medal.
Lyssa Gold
Master’s by Research Student (September 2021-23)
Lyssa conducted a master’s by research project, supported by the Ninewells Cancer Campaign, focusing on the role of GCN2 in malignant pleural mesothelioma.
