Jana Joha

Jana joined the Seiradake team in 2023 as a second year DPhil student. Her research focuses on trying to better understand the disease mechanisms behind a rare autoimmune disease, called granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA). In collaboration with clinicians and Professor Simon Draper’s Lab, the aim of her project is to utilise biophysical methods, immunoassays and cell biology techniques to investigate the interactions of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) and proteinase 3 (PR3).

Prior to joining the group, she worked in Professor Ilan Davis’s lab where her project focused on local mRNA translation of genes associated with neurodegenerative diseases in glial cells at the neuromuscular junction in Drosophila. Before coming to Oxford, she completed her Bachelor of Science, specialising in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland. She completed her final year research project on exchange at the University of Copenhagen at the Neuromet lab, investigating the metabolic effect of decanoic acid on astrocytes in Alzheimer’s Disease.

During her undergraduate studies she also completed two summer research internships, working on translational projects in Associate Professor Antoinette Perry’s and Professor Patricia Maguire’s lab at UCD.