Kames Fish Farming Ltd. is the oldest family-owned fish farm in Scotland and focuses primarily on growing large rainbow trout.Within Kames, the KTP project focuses on integrating in-house diagnostics capability within the fish health management strategy, working in partnership with the University of the West of Scotland. This KTP project is a part of Knowledge Transfer Partnership Scotland and is supported by Innovate UK.

• Discovered and characterised the presence of chromatin extracellular traps (ETs) released by rainbow trout neutrophils as a novel innate antimicrobial mechanism to combat microbial pathogens.• Fluency in fish handling, dissection, anatomy, diseases/pathogens, immune cell isolation and enrichment.• Used fluorometric assays to screen and quantify the release of chromatin ETs by trout neutrophils in response to chemical and biological compounds.• Immunocytochemical staining and fluorescent microscopy was used to confirm the composition of released chromatin.• Demonstrated microbial activity of released chromatin against bacterial fish pathogens.• Screened and characterised extracellular nuclease activity from a collection of V. anguillarum isolates, indicating a novel role for V. anguillarum nucleases in immune evasion.

• Investigated the discrepancies of longevity between C. elegans (nematode roundworm) sexes by analysing the activity of the longevity-associated transcription factor: daf-16 (orthologous to FOXO3A), using sod-3::gfp as a marker.• Used a combination of genetic crosses and RNA interference to obtain desired knock down mutants of daf-16 isoforms.• Fluorescence microscopy, fluorimetry and qPCR was used to determine and confirm the successful gene knockdowns.• Scoring several repeated lifespans of daf-16 isoform specific knockdowns led us to speculate a significant difference in male-hermaphrodite lifespans.

• Assisted in characterising the histone modifier MLL2, frequently mutated in follicular and diffuse large B-cell lymphomas with Dr. Maria Mendez-Lago.• Tested novel antibodies by western blot against specifically cloned and expressed fragments of MLL2; aiming to decipher its complex cleavage patterns and behavior which contribute to cancer development.• Performed Sanger sequencing and PCR to analyse and confirm antibody target sites.