Dr Lewis is a post-doctoral researcher at the Rosalind Franklin Institute and a visiting scientist at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Benjamin Davis and Prof. Andrew Baldwin. She is working to expand the scope of uSTA experiments to cell-small molecule systems, particularly focusing on on-cell NMR.
Viliyana completed her BSc (Hons) Chemistry, achieving a First Class at the University of Reading (UoR) in 2018. In her second year at UoR she was awarded the prestigious Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) bursary to work on a project sponsored by Dstl, Porton Down under the supervision of Dr Andrew Russell and Prof. Wayne Hayes. The project culminated in the development of an organic probe for the detection of alkylating agents, such as mustard gas. During her master in research (MRes) degree at University College London (UCL) Viliyana worked on the characterisation of drug-MRI contrast agent interactions for the development of MRI-based theranostic systems and was awarded a Distinction for her work

Sonia is a postdoc working on liquid-liquid phase separation properties of some proteins. This particular property leads to the formation of membraneless organelles inside cells, with functions that are not yet fully understood. The aim of her research project is to decipher the function of these liquid droplets as catalysts for chemical reactions. Moreover, she is interested in studying how these proteins could or not interact with each other.
Sonia completed her PhD in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Sandrine Sagan and Dr. Astrid Walrant at the Laboratoire des Biomolécules at Sorbonne Université in Paris, where she focused on understanding the mechanisms of membrane interaction and cellular uptake of cell penetrating peptides. She also obtained the French aggregation in physics and chemistry in 2019. She likes to spend her free time walking, reading, or meditating.