Current team
George Birchenough - Associate Professor/PI
George is a research group leader and tenured faculty at the department of Medical Biochemistry & Cell Biology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg. Originally trained as a medical microbiologist working with neonatal infection at University College London, he went on to complete a postdoc investigating mucus and goblet cell biology in Gunnar Hansson’s Mucin Biology Group at the University of Gothenburg. In 2020 he was appointed as a Research Fellow at the Wallenberg Centre for Molecular & Translational Medicine. George’s CV can be found here
Mahadevan V. Subramani - Postdoctoral Researcher
Dev joined the lab as our first PhD student in 2021 after completing his MSc thesis work at the Karolinska Institute. His project examined the interactions of bacterial pathogens with intestinal goblet cell subtypes, and was successfully defended in December 2025.
He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher to complete his doctoral research and develop his own independent research program.
Karl Hansson - Senior Researcher
Karl joined the lab as a postdoc in 2021 after working as a consultant for AstraZeneca and completing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Gothenburg. His project aims to determine the role of goblet cell-intrinsic defence failure in the development of colorectal cancer.
He continues this role as a Senior Researcher in the group, coordinating the pre-clinical and translational CRC research in the lab.
Alex Bennett - Postdoctoral Researcher
Alex joined the lab as a joint postdoc with Daniel Bojar’s lab in 2023 after completing his PhD in Immunology at the University of Manchester. His project applies custom bioinformatics and multi-omic analysis to examine how diurnal/circadian alterations in mucus properties, especially mucin O-glycosylation, regulate host-microbiome/pathogen interactions in the gut.
Joana K Volk - PhD student
Joana first joined the lab as an Erasmus student in 2017, where she worked on a project defining the role of inflammasomes in intestinal mucus barrier development.
After completing her MSc in Molecular Medicine she went on to complete an MD at the University of Freiburg, after which she returned to Gothenburg to undertake specialist training in obstetrics and gynecology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
Joana rejoined the lab as a part-time PhD student in 2025, where she works on a project to characterise cervical mucus plug molecular properties in pregnancy and to identify associations with intra-uterine infection and preterm labour.
Katharine Williams - PhD student
After completing her MSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of East Anglia, Kat first joined the lab as a Research Assistant in 2024 where she worked on a project to define the role of short chain fatty acid sensing by intestinal goblet cells in regulating host-microbe interactions.
She was awarded a PhD position in the lab in 2025, where she continues to work on mucus-microbe interactions in the gut, specifically how early life development of goblet cell-intrinsic protection is important in modulating the gut-brain axis and life-long susceptibility to disease.
Setu Dambhare - Research Assistant/PhD candidate
After completing an MSc in Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology jointly at Lund University and AstraZeneca, Setu joined the lab as a Research Assistant and prospective PhD student in 2025.
Setu’s project is to define vagino-cervical goblet cell and mucus properties and functions during estrus cycling and pregnancy in pre-clinical mouse models, with the goal to employ such models to study host-microbe interactions in healthy and preterm pregnancy.
Lab alumni:
Åsa Johansson - Doctoral candidate (co-supervised)
Åsa joined the lab as an associated PhD student working under the supervision of Dr. Malin Johansson. She worked part time as a Bitr. Verksamhetschef in Clinical Microbiology in Växjö, and part time in studying how goblet cell-intrinsic defences develop during the post-natal period.
After her research, Åsa has pursued a career in industry and currently works as CEO for Offspring Biosciences
Juan Sienes - Erasmus student
Juan joined the lab in 2021 as an Erasmus project student, working to establish new methods in accurately quantifying goblet cell dynamics during infection and inflammation.
After his time in the lab, Juan was offered a PhD position at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Akshi Singla - Postdoctoral researcher
Akshi joined the lab as a postdoc in 2022 after working as a postdoc in the microbiology and immunology department at University of Gothenburg and completing a PhD in chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. Her project aimed at identifying specific microbiota-host signaling pathways that regulate goblet cell dependent host microbiome interactions.
After completing her postdoctoral work - Akshi received an Assistant Professor position at the Delhi Institute of Technology where she is now establishing her own laboratory.