Dr Victoria Male

I was among the first PhD students to be affiliated with the Loke CTR when it was founded in 2007, undertaking a project in Ashley Moffett’s laboratory investigating how circulating progenitors are recruited to the uterus and give rise to uterine NK cells. On Ashley’s advice, I then moved to London to “learn about mice”, taking up a postdoctoral position at Imperial College London, where I studied the transcriptional control of NK cell development. My interest in NK cell biology across both human and mouse tissues led to a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, which enabled me to establish my own laboratory at UCL, exploring the development and function of tissue-resident NK cells in the mouse and human liver.

In 2019, I returned to Imperial and, in many ways, back to where my scientific journey began: uterine NK cells. I was recruited to lead a research programme investigating the role of innate immune cells in the physiological processes of pregnancy. My laboratory studies how uterine NK cell number and function change throughout gestation, and how these differ between fertile individuals and those who have experienced recurrent implantation failure. More recently, we have expanded our interests to include the role of decidual myeloid cells in the initiation and maintenance of labour. It has been immensely rewarding to come full circle and reconnect with the scientific questions that first inspired me to enter this field. I am enormously grateful to Charlie, Ashley and the Loke CTR for the opportunities, encouragement and support they provided at the very start of my career, and I am honoured to remain part of this vibrant and collaborative research community.