News

Our first preprint is out!

This was a fruitful collaboration with colleagues at The University of Queensland, Doherty Institute and The University of Melbourne, and Newcastle University.

For a general explanation of the work, please read our tweetorial.

Jin Hong has joined the lab as a 3rd year undergraduate Research Project student. For 5 weeks, Jin will study metalation of the nitrite reductase AniA from Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

We are very excited to welcome (soon-to-be-Dr) Louisa Stewart to the team! Louisa is a postdoc in the lab, funded by a Wellcome Trust Seed Award. She will start a new branch of research in the lab and study metal-dependent host-derived antimicrobial peptides. The work is a collaboration between our group with Assoc Prof Steven Cobb (Durham Chemistry) and Assoc Prof Nick Jakubovics (Newcastle University).

We’re very excited to welcome back Jack Bolton. Jack was an MBiol student in the lab and he has now returned to commence his PhD, funded by the BBSRC Newcastle-Liverpool-Durham Doctoral Training Partnership. Jack will study copper trafficking and the bacterial denitrification pathway.

We are very sad to see Dan go after a very productive time (6.5 weeks) in the lab. Dan was funded by a a Microbiology Society Harry Smith Vacation Studentship. He worked with PhD student Sam Firth to study Cu homeostasis in pathogenic Neisseria species. Dan will go on to complete his 3rd year as a Biomedical Sciences student at Durham. We wish Dan all the best in his future endeavours.

Sam presented her work as a poster at the recent Gordon Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference in Cell Biology of Metals, in Barcelona, Spain. Sam’s conference attendance was funded by an ECR Travel Grant from the Metals in Biology BBSRC NIBB.

Karrera presented our work on Cu homeostasis in Group A Streptococcus at the 6th Molecular Microbiology Meeting in Newcastle.

(Photo credit: Prof. Tracy Palmer)

Sam and Karrera had a great day volunteering at Soapbox Science Newcastle, a public outreach event to promote Women in STEM. Jeanette Alcaraz a PhD student from the Clark Lab (Durham Biosciences) is also pictured below.

Bonjour! Karrera delivered a talk at the Institut de Biologie Intégrative de la Cellule in Gif-sur-Yvette, Paris, France. A huge merci beaucoup to Dr Soufian Ouchane and his group for the invitation and for very interesting discussions on bacterial Cu homeostasis! There was enough time before the plane home for an obligatory quick trip to the Eiffel Tower.

We are very grateful to the Metals in Biology BBSRC NIBB for awarding an Early Career Travel Grant to our PhD student Sam Firth. Sam will use the funding to present a poster at the 2019 Gordon Research Conference in Cell Biology of Metals in Barcelona.