Sean is from the North West of England, UK, and obtained his BSc in Biochemistry in 2008 from the University of Manchester. For his PhD thesis at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre (University of Sussex, UK), obtained in 2013, Sean studied the then novel DNA primase-polymerase PrimPol, establishing a role for this enzyme in DNA damage tolerance in both human cells and the African trypanosome. For his postdoctoral studies, funded by an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, Sean came to Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, to investigate the role of nucleotide modifications upon genome stability in cancer. In 2019, Sean became an Assistant Professor at the Department of Oncology-Pathology in Karolinska Institutet, and established his research team at SciLifeLab, where he is now a Group Leader.

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Miriam is a Spanish biotechnologist with a special interest in biomedicine and molecular biology. She obtained her BSc from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in 2013 and an MSc in Regenerative Biomedicine at the Universidad de Granada in 2014. Her PhD thesis work was conducted at the Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina López-Neyra (CSIC, Spain) and focused upon the control of nucleotide homeostasis and DNA integrity in the protozoan model Trypanosoma brucei. Here, she studied the DNA damage produced in response to oxidative stress during host and pathogen interaction in vivo, and the importance of base excision repair in counteracting these DNA lesions. In addition, she also characterised two HsSAMHD1 orthologues in T. brucei and evaluated the role of these enzymes in parasite viability and nucleotide homeostasis. After graduating in 2020, she obtained a second MSc in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in 2021. For her postdoctoral studies, Miriam joined the Rudd Lab and is now applying her nucleotide metabolism expertise in the context of cancer treatment, funded by a Barncancerfonden postdoctoral fellowship. 

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Femke obtained her BSc and MSc degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, focussing on metabolic intervention in phenylketonuria and determining efficacy of antibody drug conjugates in breast cancer models. After developing an interest in cancer, she joined the group of Professor Monique den Boer at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam to study the role of chromosome 21 in pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After 9 months, the den Boer group joined the newly established Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in Utrecht, where Femke continued her PhD research. Here, she studied the frequency of targetable genetic lesions in chromosome 21 altered leukemia with specific focus on the poor prognostic iAMP21 subtype. In addition, she established several chromosome 21 altered models for further studies into the role of chromosome 21 related leukemia and identified the good-prognostic NUTM1-rearranged subtype in pediatric and infant leukemia. While finishing her PhD thesis, Femke joined the Rudd Lab for her postdoctoral research to study the mechanism of action of antimetabolites in the treatment of (pediatric) T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. 

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Christopher studied Molecular Life Science at the University of Lübeck, Germany, where he obtained his MSc in 2021. After delving into many different areas of research during his studies he decided to pursue the topics of cancer biology and nucleotide metabolism as a PhD student in the Rudd Lab. The focus of his work will be to improve the understanding of (and trying to exploit) the dNTPase SAMHD1 in the context of cancer, partially funded by a Karolinska Institutet KID grant.

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Huazhang earned his MSc in Molecular Techniques in Life Science from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University, and KTH in Sweden in 2023. His academic journey began at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, where he completed his bachelor's degree, with a primary focus on the development of ethylene synthesis inhibitors. Following his internship and MSc degree, Huazhang continued his research journey with Sean Rudd's group, delving into the nucleoside analogue drug activation and the role of nucleotide processing enzymes in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APML) cell differentiation.

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