News

Karrera was featured in this fascinating article by C&EN:

We are very grateful to the Microbiology Society for awarding us a Harry Smith Vacation Studentship! The funds will be used to fund Daniel Owen, a Level 2 Biomedical Sciences student at Durham for 6 weeks over the summer. Daniel will work together with our PhD student Sam Firth to examine copper handling in the bacterial periplasm.

We temporarily bid farewell to MBiol student Jack, who has completed two successful terms of research in the lab. Jack is now off to write up his thesis/report. We can’t wait until he’s back as a BBSRC DTP PhD student in October!

Dr Nick Jakubovics recently wrote a commentary on Andrew Turner’s paper on the link between Mn/Fe homeostasis and oxidative stress defence in Group A Streptococcus. The commentary can be found here.

Karrera recently contributed a blog post entitled “The Metal Matters” on WeTalkScience.com, where she described her journey (so far) in studying copper biology. She also doodled the illustrations herself!

This is shaping up to be an amazing 2019! We have been awarded a Springboard Award by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wellcome Trust to investigate the action of host-derived effectors of nutritional immunity. Although we have declined to accept the award because of overlap with our Wellcome Trust Seed Award, we are very grateful for the vote of confidence by the peer reviewers and panel members.

Many congratulations and hoorays to our MBiol student Jack, who has been awarded a highly competitive BBSRC DTP Studentship to stay on in the lab as a PhD student come October! Jack will be studying copper trafficking to enzymes that are involved in denitrification and microaerobic respiration.

Karrera visited Dr Louise Horsfall at the University of Edinburgh and delivered a seminar at the School of Biological Sciences about copper homeostasis in bacteria. She also met with Dr Edward Wallace. It was a fantastic visit with plenty of interesting discussions about metals!

Our review article about the handling of nutrient copper in the bacterial envelope has been highlighted as a Metallomics HOT Article in 2019. This themed collection features articles marked as HOT by the handling editor or as recommended by referees. Congratulations, Louisa and Denis!