Carrying out research in the development of a novel vaccine platform.Production of proteins in both bacterial and mammalian systems; protein purification and characterisation.Liaising with external partners and collaborators.General administrative duties (co-running and organising of weekly lab meetings, support of students with experiments and proof reading of theses).

Carrying out research looking into potential new therapeutics to treat inflammatory bowel disease, in collaboration with a pharmaceutical company.Consenting patients to obtain gut biopsy samples.Culturing gut tissue and carrying out experiments including ELISA and flow cytometry.

Undertook training to become proficient in vaccinating patients.Responsible for carrying out safe vaccination as well as ensuring correct information inputted into local and national databases.Required to work at pace whilst ensuring safety and comfort of the patient.Valuable experience in interacting with the public.

British Heart Foundation funded 1+3 PhD programme in Cardiovascular Sciences at the Randall centre for cell and molecular biophysics.Researching the protein cardiac myosin binding protein C (cMyBP-C), a sarcomeric protein thought to have a role in regulation of muscle contraction. Mutations in this protein are known to lead to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which is the most commonly inherited cardiovascular disease. Techniques used include:Cell culture - both primary cells & cell lines; adenoviral production & infection; transfectionImaging - immunofluorescence staining; conventional confocal & high-resolution microscopyMolecular biology - PCR; cloning; mutagenesisBiochemistry - protein production & purification; Western blotting; ATPase assay; co-sedimentation assay

Nine month Erasmus placement exploring the functional abnormalities of neutrophils in thalassaemic patients and their possible role in the major complications of Thalassaemia.