In 2024, she was appointed as the new Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine, effective 1st April 2025.
[8] Recently, work from her lab has uncovered a link between mitochondrial protein translation and CTL cytotoxicity,[9] termination of T cell receptor signalling at the immune synapse via ectocytosis (outward membrane budding),[10] and a link between transcription of new RNAs and the ability of CTLs to infiltrate target cell clumps.
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.
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.