Dr Zania Stamataki MSc, PhD

• Medici Enterprise Training Programme
• Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, 2011
• PhD Immunology, 2005
• MSc Immunology, 2001
• BSc (Hons) Molecular Biology, 2000

Dr Zania Stamataki is a liver immunologist with an interest in immune regulation.

Dr Stamataki obtained her PhD in Immunology from Imperial College London (Professor Mary Ritter) together with the Institute for Animal Health, Compton (Dr Bryan Charleston). Her PhD studies characterised human, bovine and ovine follicular dendritic cells, a stromal cell type with a role in B cell effector functions, viral retention and prion disease.

Dr Stamataki went on to study the role of signalling molecules in B cell development with Dr Martin Turner at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge. She came to the University of Birmingham in 2005 to study virus transmission and humoral immunity to infection in Professor Jane McKeating's Hepatitis C Research Group. Zania then moved to the NIHR Biomedical Research Unit for Liver Disease at the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research with Professor David Adams, to work on lymphocyte-hepatocyte interactions and liver immunology.

Zania commenced her career as a principal investigator with a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, which is designed for those in need of flexible support. During this time, she looked more carefully at lymphocyte-hepatocyte interactions using imaging technologies, while she had two little boys and a mum deteriorating with motor neuron disease. The fellowship allowed her the freedom to explore ideas and build models that lead to the discovery of a new biological process that they termed “enclysis”, the enclosure and lysis of live regulatory T cells by hepatocytes.

Dr Stamataki is passionate about biomedical research for patient benefit and enjoys working closely with chemists, physicists, mathematicians, clinicians, medical and biomedical students, in addition to industrial partners interested in drug discovery. Her team is driven by innovation, integrity and impact, and they value creativity, honesty, collaboration and robustness in scientific discovery.

Teaching Programmes

• Biomedical Science BSc (BMedSc) - Deputy Lead for the Liver Function in Health and Disease Module which is lead by Professor Patricia Lalor.
• Medicine and Surgery MBChB - Teaching on the 3/4 year intercalator module for liver biology and on year 2 Immunity, Infection and Haematology course, Foundations of Medical Science and Practice 3 and 4, Immunity and Infection. 
• Pharmacy MPharm - Teaching introduction to immunology, allergy and hypersensitivity, Health Sciences 1.

Project Supervisor

• Immunology and Immunotherapy MSc
• Toxicology MSc
• Molecular Biotechnology MSc
• Biomedical Science BSc (BMedSc) and MSci
• Biochemistry MSci
• Human Biology MSci
• Biological Sciences MSci

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) run by Futurelearn

Dr Stamataki developed two liver disease-associated MOOCs together with Professor Patricia Lalor, to showcase research and clinical services at the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research.

Liver Disease: Looking after your Liver

This course runs twice a year, and allows access to materials for months after registration. Register for free here to join a student community from around the world, to gain:

• an insight into liver biology and how to look after your liver
• a taste of our work at the Centre for Liver Research
• access to resources for months beyond completion of this course

Liver Transplant: the Ins and Outs

This course runs twice a year, and allows access to materials for months after registration.

Register for free here to learn more about liver transplantation with unique insights from our patients, consultants and educators at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, one of the biggest transplant centres in Europe.

Zania is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas:

• How does chronic inflammation take hold and how can we restore liver tolerance?
• How does the immune system fight infection in tissues and why does it fail sometimes?
• How can we reduce mortality from liver injury and cancer, and how can we promote liver regeneration?

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Dr Zania Stamataki directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

Zania is currently open to receiving applications from self-funded PhD students to be part of her Liver immunology, regeneration and viral infection projects (SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis viruses). If you are interested in joining the team, please contact Zania directly.

Research interests

The Stamataki Lab is located at the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research (CLGR), University of Birmingham. See our latest lab news here.

We are fascinated by the intricate architecture of the liver and we are investigating how cells of the immune system influence and are influenced by the liver microenvironment to coordinate immune regulation.

Our lab uses cell biology, immunology and virology experiments to understand and quantify interactions between immune cells and liver resident cells. We build models to manipulate these interactions using human tissues and we develop novel drug candidate molecules, in collaboration with industrial partners.

Current projects

Liver disease kills more people than diabetes and road accidents combined, and deaths due to liver disease are projected to rise over the coming years (see report by the British Liver Trust, and UK perspective at the Lancet). We aim to understand how to reduce immune mediated liver damage in order to identify new cellular and molecular targets for therapeutic interventions.

We study live human livers discarded from transplant operations under perfusion conditions, imaged by multiphoton microscopy. Our questions include:

• How does chronic inflammation take hold and how can we restore liver tolerance?
• Why does the liver immune system fail to clear hepatitis B and C virus infection in certain patients?
• How can we prevent and treat liver cancer and promote liver regeneration?

Donated liver explants are vital for our research, which would not be possible without the consent of patients that undergo life-saving operations at the Queen Elizabeth hospital transplant unit. What is it like to be listed for transplantation? Alan Hyde discusses his experience here.

Dr Stamataki is academic lead for Researcher Development at MDS, working together with Researcher Development Manager Dr Tim Giles to shape support for early and mid-career researchers. She is also:

• Academic lead for MDS SUSTAIN, a leadership programme for new principal investigators from minoritised backgrounds, modeled on the successful SUSTAIN scheme of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
• Mentor for the British Society of Immunology Mentoring Scheme
• Mentor for the Royal Society Mentoring Scheme
• Mentor for the NEST University of Birmingham Mentoring Scheme
• Role Model for the Aurora Leadership programme by Advance Higher Education
• Women in Academic Medicine and Science (WAMS) steering group committee for Athena SWAN
• STEM ambassador to promote Science and Technology for children and young people
• Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCert. LTHE)

Dr Stamataki sits on MDS committees to do with Research Culture, Researcher Development, Containment level 3 lab management and Biosafety. She also sits on University level forums on the Early Career Development Academy and is committed to The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, commonly known as the Researcher Concordat.