December 2022: Join Us! Waste, wine and superfoods: Upcycling viticultural waste into new healthy foods. We are looking for a driven and ambitious PhD student to join a project addressing environmental challenges. The project is funded by the Positive Environmental Futures Signature Research Themes at the University of Kent and involves working with a transdisciplinary team and local vineyards to investigate how horticultural waste from wine production can be developed to upcycled foods that improve health. Learn more and apply here. Email Marina at m.ezcurra@kent.ac.uk for more informal enquires.

October 2022: Join us! PhD project available through the South Coast Biosciences Doctoral Training Programme: The Power of Plants and Nematodes – New sustainable approaches to tackle biofilms and pathogens. Climate change results in an increase of infectious diseases as pathogens can adapt to environmental changes. One adaptation is formation of BIOFILMS. We will develop new, sustainable in vivo models to tackle pathogenic biofilms. Email Marina at m.ezcurra@kent.ac.uk for informal enquires.

September 2022: The Ezcurra and Tullet labs hosted the British Society of Research on Ageing annual scientific meeting on the Nutrition and Biology of Ageing at the beautiful University of Kent Canterbury campus. Over 100 ageing researchers came together to discuss ageing research, the longevity biotech landscape and how we can address both age-related ill-health and climate change through food production and dietary choices.

August 2022: Welcome back Sarah! Sarah Blackburn joins the lab again to work on a project funded by Innovate UK to work with local cherry grower Michael Dallaway to innovate agricultural food production by using cherry waste to create new highly nutritious foods.

Below: Postdoc Sarah with Michael at the cherry orchard.

August 2022: A summer of conferences! We have enjoyed a summer of conferences – great to be back to travelling, packed lecture theatres, networking and partying with the research community!

Mireya and Feng travelled to Vienna for the European Worm Meeting:

Nathan, Anthonis and Marina went to beautiful Copenhagen for the ARDD 2022 meeting:

July 2022: Upcycled foods – getting the goodness out of Kent cherries: Innovative research in the Ezcurra and Tullet labs featured in an iTV newsclip:

June 2022: Marina Ezcurra gives oral evidence to tthe All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Human Microbiome. Read the written report here:

January 2022: Sarah Blackburn joins the lab as a postdoc to work on an exciting project developing tools to monitor biofilms in vivo. The project is funded by the National Biofilms Innovation Centre and is a joint projects with industrial partners Perfectus Biomed and Magnitude Biosciences. Welcome Sarah!

December 2021: Happy Holidays! The Ezcurra and Tullet labs enjoy a COVID safe Christmas celebration outdoors with mulled wine, lots of tasty foods and grilled marshallows. And Secret Santa of course!

November 2021: Watch Dr Marina Ezcurra discussing the microbiome, health and ageing on Ira Pastor’s show Progress Potential Possiblities. Thank you Ira for being a great host!

Interested in doing a PhD on the gut-microbiome-brain axis?

Fully funded PhD position available in collaboration with Prof Amritpal Mudher at University of Southampton through the SoCoBio DTP, a fantatiic research training programme.

Application deadline 10 January 2022. Apply here.

October 2021: The Ezcurra, Tullet and Korzelius labs have an away day in the village of Wye – lots of exciting preesentations and discussions about research. And a very tasty dinner at the Tickled Trout!

October 2021: Masters students Brigita Kudzminkaite and Martina Ragno join the lab. Welcome Brigita and Martina!

September 2021: A fantstic British Society for Research on Ageing conference with a fantastic way to finish: Mireya Vazquez-Prada, PhD student in the lab, won the Korenchevsky prize. Fantastic work Mireya!

September 2021: Warm welcome to Feng Xue, our BBSRC-funded PDRA! Feng has extensive experience in using C. elegans as a model in microbiome research, we’re very pleased to have him in the team.

July 2021: Fantastic afternoon and evening enjoying the North Downs with the Tullet and Korzelius lab. Walk followed by BBQing!

June 2021: Why is research vital for generating the essential knowledge to ensure healthy ageing? Read Marina Ezcurra’s article in Open Access Government here.

May 2021: The Ezcurra lab joins forces with Magnitude Biosciences and Perfectus Biomed on an exciting project to tackle biofilms funded by the National Biofilms Innovations Centre. Read about the project here.

April 2021: JOIN US! Postdoc opportunity in the Ezcurra Lab. We have a 3-year postdoc position available to work on the BBSRC-funded project “The Power of Microbes: C. elegans as a model to identify microbiome effects on age-related muscle function”. For informal inquires, get in touch! Apply here.

February 2021: Laura Freeman, a joint PhD student with Professor Jessica Teeling at Southampton joins us. Laura is a student on the SoCoBio Doctoral Training Programme. Welcome Laura!

December 2020: JOIN US! PhD opportunity in the Ezcurra Lab. We have a PhD project together with Magnitude Biosciences as part of the SoCoBio Doctoral Training Programme. Read more here

November 2020: Dan Scanlon starts as a research assistant in the lab. Welcome Dan!

October 2020: Welcome to Nathan Dennis, new PhD student in the lab working on an exciting project on the gut-brain axis funded by a Jane Irons Studentship.

October 2020: Welcome to Zoe King, a join Masters student with Tasos Tasousis.

September 2020: The book ‘Explaining Health Across the Sciences’ is published. Read our chapter ‘What is a Healthy Microbiome?’: Karamalegos, Vazquez-Prada, Ezcurra -Healthy Microbiome

September 2020: We are looking for a full-time technician starting in October 2020. Read more here.

September 2020: Dr Marina Ezcurra is featured in the September edition of Microbiologist Magazine, read here.

July 2020: Dr Marina Ezcurra comments on how sleep is affected by ageing. Read article in Patient here.

June 2020: Read Dr Marina Ezcurra’s article in The Conversation about the risk of COVID-19 for people over the age of 70. Read here.

June 2020: PhD student Mireya Vazquez-Prada gives a presentation at the European Worm Meeting – an excellent virtual event with lots of great talks!

June 2020: PhD student Mireya Vazquez-Prada talks about her research at the Ageing Science in Isolation seminar series – connecting with the global ageing research community from the comfort of her flat in Canterbury!

February 2020: We receive funding from Kent Innovation and Enterprise for research on microbiome based solutions to healthy ageing and build collaborations with industrial partners.

December 2019: Together with Dr Campbell Gourlay at Kent we are selected to receive the first Jane Irons PhD Studentship to support a joint project:’The worm-bug: a new model to study how gut microbes affect the brain’. We are looking forward to this exciting project and welcoming a new PhD student in the autumn!

November 2019: Marina Ezcurra gave evidence to the Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living Inquiry at the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. Read Marina Ezcurra’s report on Healthy Ageing and the Microbiome. Read comments by the Society for Applied Microbiology here.

October 2019: Fully-funded PhD opportunity. Developing countries such as Thailand are experiencing rapidly ageing populations; by 2050 one in four Asians will be over 60 years old. These dramatic changes are threatening multiple aspects of socioeconomic development and population health. Interventions that promote healthy ageing are therefore vital. We have been awarded a PhD studentship by the Global Challenges Doctoral Centre for an exciting project to investigate the biological effects of traditional Thai medicine and to work towards scientifically proven interventions promoting healthy ageing in developing countries. This project is co-supervised by Dr Jenny Tullet at Kent and provides with world-class doctoral training in a vibrant research environment and interdisciplinary collaborations with our partners at University of Kent and BIOTEC Institute in Thailand. Apply here. Contact Marina Ezcurra for informal inquiries. Note: The studentship does not cover fees or visas for overseas students.

October 2019: PhD opportunities at Biosciences at University of Kent! University of Kent has recently been awarded funding from BBSRC-UKRI for a Doctoral Training Program together with University of Sussex and University of Southampton. Read about our Bioscience doctoral training centre here – projects will be advertised soon: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/biosciences/2019/10/25/phd-funding-success-for-biosciences/

September 2019:  UK Worm Meeting 2019. Mireya Vazquez-Prada, PhD student in the lab, presenting her work at the UK C. elegans Meeting at Imperial College in London. Organised and hosted by the Barkoulas lab – thank you for a fantastic meeting!

August 2019: Lab fun in the Kent countryside! The two worm labs at Kent enjoy a day out hiking to the Wye Crown followed by BBQ. We also said goodbye to Hannah Chapman, our summer intern and wish her best of luck in her future adventures!

July 2019: New publication in Plos Genetics. A collaborative project between us and the Alic lab at UCL looking at the role of ETS transcription factors in ageing in both flies and worms has been published in Plos Genetics. Read publication here.

July 2019: Exciting experiments going on! In collaboration with Simon Moore at University of Kent, Joseph Boisierras, an intern in the lab, is extracting and identifying microbial compounds that slow down ageing in C. elegans. We are really looking forward to learning about the identity of these compounds and how they interfere with ageing.

June 2019: Masters positions available at University of Kent. Still considering your options for next year? Join the University of Kent for an exciting research experience. We still have projects available at the friendly and welcoming School of Biosciences, in wonderful Canterbury. Read more here.

May 2019: Antonis Karamalegos joins the lab as research assistant. Welcome Antonis!

March 2019: Join the Ezcurra lab! We have a Wellcome Trust funded research assistant postion opening. This will be an opportunity to be part of an exciting new project aimed at establishing human experimental microbiomes in C. elegans, in close collaboration with Dr David Moyes at King’s College London. Click here for the job advert.

February 2019: We are moving to Kent! We are soon joining School of Biosciences at University of Kent in the picturesque city of Canterbury. This is a great opportunity to be part of a vibrant research community and to interact more with other groups working on the biology of ageing, such as the Tullet lab.

January 2019: Mireya attends MIND, MOOD & MICROBES – the 2nd International Conference on Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Amsterdam. The conference focused on studies showing that the gut microbiome modulates brain development and function across the lifespan, and work exploring the microbiota-gut-brain axis as a potential target for influencing mood and behaviour, such as anxiety and depression, as well as preventing or treating brain-related diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and autism. See conference website here.

November 2018: Opportunity to join our lab! We have a Wellcome Trust funded technician position available, to take part in an exciting project aiming at establishing a human experimental microbiome in C. elegans. If you are interested  get in touch!

October 2018: Our research is featured in an article by Ana Sandoiu in Medical News Today. Read here.

October 2018: Mireya Vazquez-Prada joins the lab to do a PhD on microbiome effects on the gut-brain axis during ageing. Welcome Mireya!

September 2018: Georgie Hillier joins the lab for her Masters research project. Welcome Georgie!

September 2018: Our recent Current Biology study is recommended by F1000 – twice! See recommendations here.

August 2018: Human ageing not caused by wear and tear but by unhelpful genes, study suggests. Article by Science Editor Sarah Knapton in The Telegraph about our recent Current Biology study. Read the article here.

August 2018: Worms may age because they cannibalize their own intestines. Coverage of our work by Mitch Leslie in Science Magazine. Read here.

August 2018: Scientists unlock the key to ageing. Tom Bowden at iNews writes about our new study. Read here.

August 2018: Why do we get old? There are many theories trying to explain why we age. Our new study, published today in Current Biology, suggests that ageing is caused by ‘antagonistic pleiotropy’. Antagonistic pleiotropy means that genes that are beneficial in early life, promoting reproduction and survival, start having deleterious effects in later in life, causing diseases and ageing. So ageing is not caused by tear-and-wear like an old car, but instead actively by our own genes. See the paper here.

July 2018: Our study showing that ageing is mainly the result of concerted action by our own genes and not, as long believed, by random wear and tear and loss of function is accepted by Current Biology. See more here.

February 2018: We attend the Healthy Ageing: From Molecules to Organisms conference at the Wellcome Genome Campus Conference Centre, give a flash presentation and present a poster, and listen to some great talks. Learn more about some of the talks here.

February 2018: Isabel Morgan from Surrey University joins the lab to work on a project studying microbial effects on behaviour and neurodegenerative disease models. Welcome Isabel!

January 2018: Our review on using C. elegans combined with bacterial model systems to study gut-microbiome interactions is published in Biogerontology. Read the paper here.