News

Martha Simmonds has joined the group as a Level 3 Undergraduate Research Project student in Durham Biosciences. Martha will work with Safa and Archie to identify a mysterious oral bacterium.

Ben Kelly has joined us as an MRes student. He will work on the Cu-dependent nitrite reductase AniA from N. gonorrhoeae.

We are so pleased to welcome back Will Earl to the lab, now as a PhD student. Will is funded by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership. He will continue his MRes project on the biochemical and structural characterisation of the Cu-dependent nitrite reductase from pathogenic Neisseria.

It is Oscar’s last day with us. We enjoyed working with him and we hope the feeling is mutual! We are sorry to see him leave and we wish him all the best in his final year at Durham.

We are very excited to receive a Durham University Seedcorn Award. This funding will help us establish a new collaboration with Dr Denis Patterson and Dr Andrew Krause, both at Durham Mathematical Sciences. This work will fund preliminary development of a novel theory in mathematical ecology that can explain how metal ions influence coexistence of bacteria in complex bacterial communities.

Congratulations to Dr (de facto) Jack Bolton for passing his PhD viva. Many thanks to examiners Prof. Paul Denny (Durham) and Prof. James Moir (York). The group did a mini celebration on Zoom. Jack will soon start as a Lecturer at Sterling College, Kansas, USA. We wish him all the best in this exciting next step of his career.

We are delighted to welcome Oscar Goodwill to the group. Oscar is a Level 2 Biosciences undegraduate student. He will spend 6 weeks with us, funded by a Durham Biosciences Summer Studentship, to study the Cu-dependent nitrite reductase from pathogenic Neisseria.

Many congratulations to Jack Bolton for submitting his PhD thesis. We went to celebrate with hot chocolate and tea. We wish him all the best in his new endeavours in the USA!

Many congratulations to ex-group members Jin, Louisa, Sam, and current group member Jack for their new paper, entitled “Mis-regulation of Zn and Mn homeostasis is a key phenotype of Cu stress in Streptococcus pyogenes“, which is now on-line!

A warm welcome to Safa Chogule and Archie Howell, new PhD students in the group. Safa is funded by a BBSRC Newcastle-Liverpool-Durham DTP Scholarship while Archie is funded by a Durham University Janet Stevens Scholarship. Both of them will study the interactions between metal ions, salivary histatins, and oral microbes.