Background
I graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a first class honours degree in Biomedical Science in 2021 and decided to further my studies with a master’s degree in Antimicrobial Resistance. My undergraduate research project titled “Inducing plasmid loss with toxin-antitoxin constructs in enteroinvasive Escherichia coli O96:H19” fostered my desire to work as a research scientist in molecular microbiology. This project aimed to investigate whether the native pathogenicity of bacterial isolates could be disrupted by the addition of specific genetic material, namely the vapBC toxin-antitoxin system. This research involved learning new laboratory skills of inducing competence, cell transformation, electrophoresis and various growth assays, as well as new content - as I was previously unfamiliar with the intricacies of bacterial genetics. For this research project I was awarded the Yakult Prize for Top Student in Microbiology (Best Final Year Research Project in Microbial Physiology and Genomics). It is my professional goal to become a scientific researcher, to contribute to the fight against antimicrobial resistance. To begin to do this, I would like to pursue PhD study and then a career as a research fellow. Florey MSc Research Project The role of stringent response genes relA, relP and relQ in the persistence of Streptococcus pyogenes Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the aetiological agent of the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea and is a global public health concern due to the high prevalence of infection, possibility of severe complications and rising rates of antibiotic resistance leading to reduced treatment options. This research project was in the laboratories of Dr Jon Shaw and Dr Luke Green in the department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease at the Royal Hallamshire hospital. The project was a mixture of conventional wet laboratory work and bioinformatics, involving comparing the whole genome sequence data of N. gonorrhoeae isolates from clinical specimens to World Health Organisation reference strains, as well as evaluating differences between PacBio, Illumina and Nanopore sequencing data. Multiplex PCR was used to identify genes within the clinical isolates and minimum inhibitory concentrations were established to detect patterns in antimicrobial resistance, which were then linked to single nucleotide polymorphisms in the genome of each strain. This research is a step towards producing rapid point of care urine-based diagnostic tests for gonorrhoea that can also detect antimicrobial resistance. |
The Team
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