Alicia obtained her BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences with Industrial Experience from the University of Manchester in 2016. She completed her industrial placement year at AstraZeneca UK, working within the Investigative & Translational Pathology group. Here, her work centred around the safety testing of candidate ERK and MEK inhibitors for cancer therapy, including the validation of biomarkers of inhibition for ‘proof-of-mechanism’ studies. In 2017, Alicia began her PhD in Immunology at the University of Manchester, funded by the Medical Research Council and Immodulon Therapeutics. Under the supervision of Professor Andrew MacDonald and Dr John Grainger, her PhD research aims to establish the mechanism by which the environmental mycobacterium M.obuense may be used therapeutically to train the innate and adaptive immune system towards a protective anti-cancer response.