About me:

I am a final year PhD student, reading for my doctorate at The Royal Veterinary College, University of London. I completed my BSc at the University of Surrey in 2004 and spent some time at the University of California, Berkeley, with Professor Lee Riley before returning to the UK.

I work in the lab of Professor Neil Stoker, whose general research theme involves the study of the genetics underlying mycobacterial virulence mechanisms and the development of new tools to aid this research.

The research covered during my PhD has involved a hybrid approach, combining both laboratory molecular biology & immunology with in silico computational work. We have developed a novel method of microarray analysis that allows us to quantify the prokaryotic transcriptome. This removes the need to draw comparisons to biologically questionable control conditions and can be used to extract considerable information about the transcriptome. I recently presented a summary of this work as a poster at the Keystone symposium on Tuberculosis in Vancouver, Canada.

We have also been able to use this data to identify novel antigens from M. tb. From this we have discovered a potential diagnostic antigen that could be used to enhance currently existing techniques as, unlike previously developed tests, there is no cross reaction with vaccinated individuals.

Further details regarding particular scientific & programming skills can be found here.