My PhD has involved the functionalisation of potato virus X, grapevine fanleaf virus and AP205 as viral (like) nanoparticles in order to produce multi-enzyme nano-reactors. This has involved the use of modern molecular biology and synthetic biology approaches to overcome the limitations presented by these viral platforms. I have developed a novel viral overexpression platform to produce both enzymes and viral like particles in planta and optimised multiple methods in order to purify and isolate the modified particles generated.My PhD has given me extensive experience in molecular biology techniques, protein expression and purification, work in BSL2 conditions, enzyme assays and electron microscopy.

Working in the Smith group to elucidate the activity of two novel Trypanosoma brucei proteins and screen for potential trypanocidal agents. This project gave me significant experience in the recombinant expression and purification of proteins using a bacterial expression system. As part of the project I also developed my knowledge of assay design and immunohistochemistry.

Carried out a year long research project under the supervision of Dr Jens Tilsner. The project involved the identification of plant orthologs of a known antiviral protein in mammals and elucidation of their potential antiviral effects when expressed in plants. In concert with the above project I helped develop a novel high-sensitivity RNA imaging system for use with confocal laser scanning microscopy, which is to be published in the near future. This entailed working under containment conditions with GMO organisms and gave me valuable experience in restriction free cloning, qPCR, confocal laser scanning microscopy and many molecular virology techniques.