Insitution: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Supervisors: Professor James Logan and Dr Rachel Allen
The project: The skin microbiome and human attractivness to malaria mosquitoes
My PhD project is part of the MRC-funded GenoScent project which aims to investigate the genetic basis of attractiveness to mosquitoes, both in the UK and in a natural host-vector-parasite system in The Gambia. The study will provide insight into the mechanisms that can affect our body odour, and make people more or less attractive to mosquitoes. By collecting body odour from identical and non-identical twins in the UK and The Gambia, we will test the relative attractiveness of twins to the major vector of malaria, Anopheles mosquitoes, in behavioural experiments as well as investigate their odour profiles. My PhD is focused on the skin microbiome of these participants. I will associate the skin microbiome with the body odour and attractiveness to mosquitoes. Understanding the role of the microbiome in how humans produce natural attractants and repellents could be used to develop novel vector control tools in the future.
To hear experts discuss why some people get bitten more than others listen here.
I co-organise “Outbreak: an introduction to careers in public health”, a public engagment workshop funded by MRC LID. The workshop aims to inspire the next generation of public health professionals. It begins with a short news reel that sets the seen of a malaria outbreak in London, students work against the clock to fight the disease. There are five interactive stations which introduce students to careers in Epidemiology, Statistics, Modelling, Diagnostics and Vector Control. At a time when students are making important A-level and university decisions, the exercise is a memorable introduction to the diversity of science-based careers and skill-sets involved in controlling a disease outbreak.
Insitution: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Supervisor: Dr Ernest Diez Benavente
The project: A Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factor Analysis in Working Age Russians
I investigated associations between established risk factors of cardiovascular disease (BMI, smoking and alcohol) the gut microbiota and cardiovascular disease. The project gave me the opportunity to learn how to use QIIME2 for microbiome analysis and work on a large exploratory analysis as part of the Know your heart study. I used linear regression to associate risk factors and the relative abundance of bacteria at the phylum and family levels. Regression was also used to investigate associations of the relative abundance of bacteria with heart pathology markers associated with cardiovascular disease (NT-pro BNP and Troponin).
Insitution: University of Liverpool/ Liverpool school of tropical medicine
Supervisors: Dr Seth Barribeau (UOL) and Dr Lee Haines (LSTM)
The project: RNAi of mucin in Bombus terrestris defense against Crithidia bombi
My honour project aimed to establish RNA interference for transcript knock down of genes involved in bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) defence against the trypanosome parasite (Crithidia bombi). The project gave me the opportunity to do lots of independent molecular laboratory work throughout my third year. I learnt how to make double stranded RNA and was successful in feeding it to the bees.
Insitution: University of Liverpool
Supervisors: Professor Alan McCarthy and Dr Claire Scantlebury
The project: Development of a diagnostic test for Equine Histoplasmosis
I was awarded Society for applied microbiology funding for an eight week placement in the University of Liverpool Microbiology Research Group between the second and third years of my undergraduate degree. During the project I developed my molecular biology skills, had my first taste of research and achieved the project aim, proving that equine histoplasmosis is present in West as well as East Africa.
Read more here.