Gillian Griffiths facts for kids

Gillian Margaret Griffiths is a British cell biologist and immunologist. Griffiths was one of the first to show that immune cells have specialised mechanisms of secretion, and identified proteins and mechanisms that control cytotoxic T lymphocyte secretion.

Current research

Griffiths is Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Cambridge, running a research laboratory at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. She was Director of CIMR from 2013 until 2017. In 2024, she was appointed as the new Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine, effective 1st April 2025. Her work leverages advanced microscopy techniques to image cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) as they kill cancerous target cells, as well as functional assays and biochemical techniques. Recently, work from her lab has uncovered a link between mitochondrial protein translation and CTL cytotoxicity, termination of T cell receptor signalling at the immune synapse via ectocytosis (outward membrane budding), and a link between transcription of new RNAs and the ability of CTLs to infiltrate target cell clumps.

Education

When she was young, Griffiths initially thought she might like to be an ecologist. However, she began her scientific career at University College London by studying immunology. She continued in the subject, undertaking her PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge supervised by César Milstein.

Awards and honours

Griffiths' research is largely funded by the Wellcome Trust, having been awarded Principle Research Fellowships in 2014 and 2019, and a Discovery Award in 2024. She is a Fellow at King's College, Cambridge and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013. Her nomination for the Royal Society reads

Gillian Griffiths has made key contributions to the fields of both cell biology and immunology, introducing important new concepts into both fields. Gillian Griffiths was one of the first to show that immune cells use specialised mechanisms of secretion, identifying the proteins and mechanisms controlling secretion from cytotoxic T lymphocytes via high resolution live cell microscopy, biochemical approaches, and by studying human genetic diseases. Her work has identified a new and unexpected role for the centrosome in exocytosis, and revealed that centrosome docking at the plasma membrane provides a focal point for exocytosis. Her work is both elegant and insightful.

• 2019: Awarded the Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society.