Dr. Victoria Male

Biography

Associate Professor of Reproductive Immunology based in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion, and Reproduction at Imperial College London. Victoria Male completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge focusing on NK cells in human pregnancy. Following her doctoral studies, she undertook a post-doctoral project investigating the transcriptional control of NK cell development in mice. In 2015, she was awarded the Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, which enabled her to establish her own laboratory at the Royal Free Hospital Campus of UCL. Her research group has demonstrated that long-lived resident NK cells are present in the human liver and identified the pathways that govern their development. They have also shown that NK cells recruited to the liver become functional in obesity-associated liver disease, impacting the ability to clear cancer cells. In 2019, she returned to Imperial College, initially appointed as a Lecturer in Reproductive Immunology, then promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2022, and Associate Professor in 2025. Her work encompasses innate immune cells in the human uterus related to pregnancy and has included research on the effects of SARS-CoV2 infection and COVID vaccination on fertility and menstrual cycles. Her laboratory is funded by various organizations, including Borne, MRC, and Action Medical Research.

Research Interests

Experience