I am very proud to be part of this innovative initiative. At the Wellcome Genome Campus Advance Courses we are developing online courses (to be launched in Spring 2018!) covering a wide range of topics related to pathogens, human health, sequencing technologies and bioinformatics. My role in this initiative is to delivery learning objectives to a wide demographic of learners through the development of bespoke content.

I am the recipient of an NCBS-InStem-Cambridge Postdoctoral Fellowship award which I will undertake from May 2016 and for the extent of 4 years. This position is a joint appointment between Cambridge University and the National Centre for Biological Sciences & Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, India. The NCBS-InStem-Cambridge Postdoctoral Fellowship programme was launched in 2015 and I belong to their first intake of postdoctoral fellows.The project I am undertaking during my fellowship focuses on the molecular biology of non-coding RNAs, in particular small RNAs acting in a non-cell autonomous manner. RNA has long been known for its translator role in passing information from DNA-to-protein. However, RNA also plays regulatory roles and has the potential to transmit information between cells, organisms and even species. The nature of mobile RNA species and the transport mechanisms used to reach the target location are largely unknown. In addition, there is great interest in delivering RNAs into human tissue for therapeutic applications such as targeted silencing of genes involved in disease. Understanding the basis of mobile RNAs in model organisms will provide new insights into the design of therapeutic RNAs for efficient uptake into tissues and cells.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the WTSI, I developed a research programme that aims at understanding the role of microRNAs in the development of the early stages of the S. mansoni larvae, the so-called "skin stage". This involves characterisation of miRNA sequences through high-throughput sequencing, differential expression analysis and validation. In addition to my research project, I established and currently help maintain the life cycle of the parasite S. mansion at the WTSI. This task demanded strong project management skills, as well as careful and dutiful writing and enforcement of risk assessments and standard operating procedures, all with the additional challenge of dealing with a human infectious agent. The establishment of the parasite life cycle within the Sanger Institute (the third in the UK) has created a number of research projects for other team members and other groups, with whom I work in close collaboration, assisting them in all aspects of schistosome biology.

During my Ph D training I worked on transcriptome analysis of the parasitic helminth Schistosoma mansion; in particular focusing on the human invading stage of the parasite, the so-called "skin stage".

Towards the end of my Bsc degree, I have specialized in antioxidant pathways in the tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus and selenoproteins.