Group members

Visiting student (2025)

I am an undergraduate student broadly interested in animal behaviour and I joined Vale Group to study oviposition site selection in Drosophila melanogaster. I am working on a project exploring the effects of bacterial infection on behaviour, and it is increasingly tempting to learn about host-pathogen interactions!

Genetics Society Summer student (2025)

I am an undergraduate Biological Sciences student doing an 8 weeks summer internship with Vale Group. I am interested in animal behaviour and my project is about heritability of pathogen avoidance in Drosophila. Other than that, I also enjoy travelling and learning about new cultures and trying new things!

Ecological and Environmental Sciences Undergraduate (2025)

I am an undergraduate studying at the University of Edinburgh with an interest in animal behaviour, ecology, and palaeontology. I joined the Vale Group to develop my experience studying behavioural responses to infection in invertebrates - particularly Drosophila melanogaster -, and enhance my knowledge beyond the remit of my degree programme. I'm excited to study something completely new to me in such a diverse and friendly team!

Erasmus visiting student (2025)

I’m a biochemist with a strong interest in the dynamics of infections and how they are shaped by both ecology (what happens on the outside) and genetics (what happens on the inside). I joined Pedro Vale’s group to learn from professionals in this field and to experience life in Edinburgh – a city that speaks for itself. I’m excited to be part of this team and to keep exploring how tiny organisms can tell big stories. And if I manage to better understand Scottish accents along the way, that’ll be an unexpected bonus!

2025 Zoology Hons Project Student

My project asks how the the perception of social cues may impact the progression and severity of infection. I am interested in behavioural ecology, ageing and senescence, and wildlife conservation. I also love art cinema and classical music.

MScR in Infectious Disease (2024)

I'm extremely interested in pathogens and infectious diseases which has led me to join the group researching super-shedders with Drosophila melanogaster as a model. I love working in the lab, however, in my free time I also enjoy walking around Edinburgh as it is a stunning city, as well as taking pictures of birds and identifying them.

Postdoctoral fellow (2020-2024)

Megan was a postdoc between 2020 and 2024. She worked on a variety of projects including:

• genetic variation in disease tolerance,
• mitochondrial effects on innate immunity,
• the drivers of variation in pathogen spread, and
• critical transitions between health and disease.

Megan received a PhD from the University of Muenster in 2017, where she studied disease tolerance and its relationship to immune priming in Drosophila melanogaster with Sophie Armitage. From 2017- 2020, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at IST Austria in Sylvia Cremer’s group, examining colony level disease resilience in an invasive, polygynous ant species, Cardiocondyla obscurior.

Megan Kutzer - Google Scholar

2024 Zoology Hons Project Student

Cara's project investigated the form of selection and heritability of a trait that allows Drosophila melanogaster to avoid pathogens when laying eggs. She is currently a field assistant with Amy Pedersen and Iris Mair.

 Amy Pedersen  |  Iris Mair

2024 Zoology Hons Project Student

Research Assistant and Lab Manager (2015-2023)

Katy was the Vale lab manager for nearly 9 years, managing every aspect of our lab (and often other labs too), and also finding time to run her own experiments on behavioural responses to infection.  She is now an RA in the Ross Lab. 

Ross Lab

2023 Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree in Infectious Disease and One Health (IDOH+)

I am a medical doctor with a keen interest in infection and its dynamics leading to disease and death. I intend to identify early warning signals of critical transitions in the course of infection with Dr. Pedro Vale and his team. In the future, I hope to apply dynamical systems theory concepts in clinical research. By designing early warning systems to predict disease transitions, I would like to create room for intervention that might help reduce morbidity and mortality.

2023 Zoology Hons Project Student

Alex investigated the effect of diet on pathogen shedding in Drosophila melanogaster. She is currently a field assistant with Amy Pedersen and Iris Mair.

Amy Pedersen  |  Iris Mair

2023 Zoology Hons Project Student

Investigated the effect of larval rearing density on pathogen shedding in Drosophila melanogaster. 

2021-2023  Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health

Phoebe did a rotation in the lab on "Innate immune regulation of pathogen avoidance in Drosophila". She then stayed on as PhD student until early 2023, where she did some excellent work on the immune regulation of pathogen shedding. She is a now an Associate Medical Writer in Oxford.

2022 Immunology Hons Project student

Julia's Hons project focused on how different damage repair mechanisms might impact disease tolerance. Following her Hons project, Julia stayed o in the lab as a Research Assistant. She went on to pursue an MSc and now a PhD in Translational Medicine in Barcelona.

2022 Genetics Hons Project student

I'm interested in molecular genetics and my current project makes me very interested in mitochondria and mitochondrial immunity. I'm also broadly interested in new genetics based technologies that are supposed to replace antibiotics in the future.

Mitochondrial background can explain variable costs of immune deployment

I absolutely love laboratory work and would love to keep doing it after I graduate. In my spare time, I love to read. 

2022 Evolutionary Biology Hons Project student

I have a keen interest in evolutionary biology and also now particularly interested in mitochondrial variation and the effect of immune response deployment on life history traits such as activity and sleep. In my spare time I like to go to the gym and play football a lot.

Mitochondrial background can explain variable costs of immune deployment

Michael went on to pursue an MSc in Precision Medicine and Pharmacological Innovation at the University of Glasgow.

2018-2021 - Darwin Trust PhD student

Google Scholar

Arun's PhD was on:

• the innate immune regulation of disease tolerance and immune priming in Drosophila,
• with a particular focus on how negative immune regulators, and
• damage limitation mechanisms contribute to the phenotype we describe as disease tolerance. 

He also carried out some excellent work on immune priming and its immune regulation. 

He is now a postdoc in Ann Tate's lab in Nashville, USA.

Ann Tate's lab

2019-2020 Research Assistant

Emily did her Hons project in the lab and has continued as an RA working on the role of gut damage repair mechanisms on bacterial shedding and spreading. She then obtained a Masters in Infection Biology from the University of Glasgow and is now pursuing a PhD studying the evolutionary ecology of circadian rhythms in malaria parasites.

Emily's profile

2021 Genetics Hons Project student

"Genetic variation and co-variation in the response to pathogens"

2021 Immunology Hons Project student

"Separating host and pathogen drivers of sickness behaivours"

2021 Zoology Hons Project student

"Experimental epidemiology: do fruit flies modify their social interactions to avoid infected conspecifics?"

2021 Ecology Hons Project student

"Proximate and ultimate links between aggression and susceptibility to pathogens"

2020 Genetics Hons Project student

Mitochondrial effects on the cost of immunity in Drosophila

2020 Evolutionary Biology Hons Project student

What is the fitness cost of specific components of the immune response?

2020 Evolutionary Biology Hons Project student

Disentangling host and pathogen driven sickness behaviours

2020 Immunology Hons Project student

Immune priming in Drosophila

2017 - 2019 -  Postdoc

Tiina Salminen - Google Scholar

Tiina was a postdoc in our lab for two years and has a background in ecological genetics, mitochondrial biology, and immunity of Drosophila. Her work uses cybrid lines to explore:

• The role of mitochondrial genome variation on fly immunity
• Mitochondrial perturbations enhance cell-mediated innate immunity in Drosophila

She is now a group leader and a Finnish Academy of Sciences Fellow, and leads the Mitochondrial Immunometabolism group at the University of Tampere.

Mitochondrial Immunometabolism group

2017-2019 - Marie Curie Postdoctoral fellow

Vincent's website

Vincent's Marie Curie EU-funded fellowship explored how pathogens evolve when hosts vary in their ability to tolerate infection. Along the way he also worked on natural genetic variation in the propensity to orally acquire and expel bacterial pathogens. Vincent moved on to become Assistant Professor at Ulm University in Germany, and is now a permanent researcher at INRAE in Montpellier.

INRAE 

2015-2019 - NERC E3 DTP PhD Student

Jonti defended his PhD successfully in July 2019. His PhD addressed the genetic, physiological, and behavioural causes of individual variation in pathogen transmission and how they scale up to population disease dynamics. 

• Dissecting genetic and sex-specific sources of host heterogeneity in pathogen shedding and spread
• Navigating infection risk during oviposition and cannibalistic foraging in a holometabolous insect
• Viral infection causes sex-specific changes in fruit fly social aggregation behaviour
• Genotype and sex-based host variation in behaviour and susceptibility drives population disease dynamics

He is now a statistics nerd in the civil service.

2019 - MSc student - Visiting from Université Clermont-Auvergne

Mickael did Master's research project investigating the role of Jak-Stat signalling on the ability to flies to tolerate bacterial infections.

Duox and Jak/Stat signalling influence disease tolerance in Drosophila during Pseudomonas entomophila infection

2019 Erasmus MEME Master Student (with Luke McNally)

Luke McNally

Zach worked in our lab on host determinants of AMR evolution. He is now a PhD student in Alex Hall's team at ETH Zurich. 

Erasmus MEME

2019 Evolutionary Biology Hons Project student

Is aggression immune-suppressing or immune-enhancing in Drosophila?

2019 Genetics Hons Project student 

mtDNA mutation effects on activity and sleep in Drosophila

Lucy's work was highlighted in the Heredity podcast.

Heredity Podcast

2018 Evolutionary Biology Honours student

Ali did a fantastic Hons project on:

Terminal investment strategies following infection are dependent on diet

2018 MSc student in Biomedical Science

Ryan did his MSc research project in our group on mitochondrial effects on humoral and cellular innate immune responses in Drosophila.

2017 Wellcome Trust PhD program in Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health

Kyriaki dod a short rotation in our group as part of her HPGH PhD program, exploring the mechanistic basis of infection tolerance.

Intraspecific genetic variation in host vigour, viral load and disease tolerance during Drosophila C virus infection

2017 Molecular Biology Honours Student

"Within- and between-generational effects of temperature on gut microbiota and disease susceptibility"

2017 Evolutionary Biology Honours Student

"Genetic variation in social aggregation and pathogen transmission"

2017 Zoology Honours Student

"The link between immunty and aggression in Drosophila"

2015-2017 Postdoctoral fellow

Vanika Gupta - Google Scholar

Vanika was a postdoc in the lab between 2015-2017, having previously done an impressive PhD in the Prasad Lab at IISER Mohali on experimental evolution of resistance and tolerance in Drosophila.

Prasad Lab

During her time in our group, Vanika's work focused on better ways to measure disease tolerance, and on genetic variation in mortality and sterility tolerance of a viral infection in D. melanogaster. Vanika went on to do a postdoc with Brian Lazzaro at Cornell.

Brian Lazzaro

She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi. 

2015-2016 Research Technician

Helen brought over 20 years of lab experience to our group and took care of all aspects of lab maintenance, media preparation, H&S paperwork, fly husbandry, and even found time for the odd experiment. Her charm and wit are missed.

2015-2016 Research assistant

Emili was broadly interested in biomedical science and public health. Her work in the group addressed the consequences of anti-disease therapies on the epidemiology of infectious disease. Emili carried out a systematic search of published scientific literature to assess the effect of NSAID/antipyretic use on the potential for disease transmission. She has recently finished her BSc degree in Microbiology and is currently a medical lab tech at Q² Solutions.

2015 Visiting Summer student from Universidade de Lisboa

Joaquim spent 8 weeks in our lab, and developed an interest for behavioural assays. During his stay, Joaquim tested how viral infection affected male-male aggression in D. melanogaster.  After a period as a Master's student at the Arendt Lab at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Joaquim is currently a PhD Candidate in the International Neuroscience Doctoral Program at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown.

Arendt Lab

Champalimaud Foundation

2015 Zoology Honours student

Charlotte did her undergraduate project research in our lab. She investigated the physiological and behavioural effects of low, sub-lethal levels of viral gut infection in D. melanogaster. 

Costs and benefits of sublethal Drosophila C virus infection

Her work showed that even infections that do not kill flies can make them sick by moving less, changing their reproduction and affecting their ability to excrete. Charlotte went on to do an MSc in Conservation at U. Exeter (Cornwall), and is now doing Citizen Science in the middle of the Atlantic on the Açores islands.

2014 Undergraduate summer student

Michael was one our first students, and did some great work testing how viral infection affects fly locomotion and sleep. 

Sex-specific behavioural symptoms of viral gut infection and Wolbachia in Drosophila melanogaster

He also tested the ability of flies to avoid infectious feeding sites when foraging, and found that previously exposed female flies showed lower motivation to pick a food source when presented with a risk of encountering virus. 

Infection avoidance behavior: Viral exposure reduces the motivation to forage in female Drosophila melanogaster

Michael went on to do an MSc in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation at Imperial College, and will soon start a PhD in the NERC London DTP. In the meantime he enjoys shooting birds.

2014 Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Vasantha is a microbiologist and during his time in our group he worked on oral bacterial infection in D. melanogaster. He found that the route of infection determines whether the endosymbiont Wolbachia can protect flies from infection. 

The route of infection determines Wolbachia antibacterial protection in Drosophila

Vasantha is currently a postdoc at the CNRS Institute of Genetics and Development in Rennes. 

CNRS Institute of Genetics and Development