In the first entry of our Fellow’s Blog, Restore Fellow Rebeca Arroyo Hornero introduces herself and her work. Through this new feature, we hope to share extracts from the working lives of our researchers, who are working hard to push the frontiers of burns and scarring research.

I am a second year Restore-funded DPhil Student at the University of Oxford, working under the supervision of Dr Fadi Issa in Transplant Immunology. Our group is developing a cellular therapy to treat patients with extensive burn injuries. My research focuses on regulatory T cells, an immune cell population able to prevent skin graft rejection. I aim at identifying new strategies to increase regulatory T cell potency in order to generate a safe therapy for clinical use.

My tasks as a DPhil research student are very diverse. Everything starts with reading published papers and then designing studies. My passion is in the practical side: performing experiments. A typical day involves flying between the seminar room, library and laboratory. But research is not all about laboratory experiments and reading – an important element is sharing my findings with the wider scientific community. Presenting my research to the general public and to other scientists and clinicians at conferences is as important as generating results, and can be even more exciting when new research collaborations develop!

The life of DPhil student in immunology is fascinating, challenging and rewarding. I hope to share my experiences with you in the future through this Blog.