New arrival

In June the group welcomed a new research associate, Sam Grainger. Sam is joining us to work on a Dstl-funded project in the area of electrosynbionics. He has a wealth of experience in synthetic biology and previously worked in a start-up company that was developing new techniques for breeding black soldier flies for novel applications.

PhD student to Post-Doc

Just a couple of weeks later Matthew Aquilina submitted his PhD thesis, in the area of DNA nanotechnology for applications in precision medicine. Matthew was successful in securing a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from the Doctoral Training Programme in Precision Medicine and he will therefore be staying with the group until the end of the year to continue his exciting work.

And a Graduation!

On 4th July, Alex Speakman formally graduated with a doctorate in engineering. Alex was the group’s first PhD student and then its first postdoc. His PhD thesis was entitled ‘Electrically Directed Gene Expression (EDGE): Using switchable DNA triplexes and electrolysis to modulate transcription in a cell-free medium’. Alex is now running his own start-up company (EVA Biosystems), for which he has won various grants and awards.

Good luck and congratulations to all!