Engineering the bacterial cellulose producing bacterium Komagataeibacter rhaeticus.

Supervisors: Prof. Stephen Perkins (UCL) in collaboration with Prof. Barbara Brodsky (Tufts university) and Prof. George Makhatadze (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)Continued from my 3rd year research project, collected more biophysical data and compared with molecular dynamics simulations.Gained experience in:- Analysing molecular dynamics simulations (RMSD, RMSF and Principle component analysis) and comparing computational data with experimental data to form novel conclusions on protein structure.- Collaborating with researchers from other research groups and countries.- Summarising project results by the production of a full first draft manuscript for a scientific paper.

Supervisor: Prof Stephen Perkins (UCL)This project focused on determining the flexibility of a series of collagen model peptides in solution. I analysed data from two biophysical techniques which suggested collagen molecules do not possess a rigid rod-like structure previously suggested by x-ray crystallography.Gained experience in:- Utilising AUC and SAXS to produce data on collagen structures in solution.- Processing data with a variety of programs and techniques, (including SEDFIT, Guinier analysis and DATGNOM) thereby aiding in the elucidation of structural characteristics.- Scrutinising, designing and manipulating biological molecules from structural data in an assortment of programs (including: PyMol, Small Molecule Drug Discovery Suite and Swiss-PdbViewer). - Designing publication quality figures with OriginPro and R (specifically ggplot2).