Anna York, a recent MIBTP Warwick graduate, has been awarded an OSCA (Outstanding Student Contribution Award). The OSCAs recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions of Warwick’s students. They not only excel academically, but also find the time to campaign for good causes, fundraise, start small business, and work with local charities.

Anna has been very active during her time at Warwick, both during her undergraduate studies and throughout her Doctorate of Philosophy in Biological Sciences.

Whilst studying for her Undergraduate degree, Anna, along with a group of fellow students, set up, a club for able-bodied and disabled young people aged 11 – 19, in Leamington Spa. Anna continued her commitment, whilst studying for her PhD, becoming President for a number of years. Central to the function of Phab, Anna undertook training, allowing her to work with the disabled and trained others in disability awareness, enhancing the capabilities of Warwick Youth Phab. The club provided and continues to provide, a fully inclusive environment in which young people are able to socialise with a wide range of activities.

Anna was on the organising committee for the Women in Science initiative as part of Athena Swann. Anna obtained funding and coordinated events, raising consciousness amongst the Warwick scientific community of the challenges faced by women in the pursuit of scientific careers.

In 2016 Anna volunteered for Warwick Marrow due to her awareness of the impact of those illnesses for which bone marrow donation is essential to treatment.

Anna’s postgraduate research relates to antibiotic resistance and as part of this drive to further awareness of antibiotic resistance she helped organise and run an antibiotic awareness day. Anna and some of her fellow postgraduates provided practical experience of microbiology and the basic science and issues surrounding antibiotic resistance to 233 Key Stage 3 pupils over two days at two schools. As a direct result of this outreach experience, Anna co-authored a published paper outlining the delivery and impact of this work.

Apart from these fantastic achievements, Anna also contributed to several other causes and activities on campus such as Staff Student Liaison Committee and worked as a resident tutor, supporting students as they make the transition from living at home to living and working as students.

Anna is continuing her research as a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale School of Public Health.

Charlotte Cooper, Birmingham MIBTP final year student, was published as a joint-first author in Molecular Microbiology on a paper entitled ‘The mycolic acid reductase Rv2509 has distinct structural motifs and is essential for growth in slow-growing mycobacteria.’ The publication details are as follows:

Javid, A., Cooper, C., Singh, A., Schindler, S., Hanisch, M., Marshall, R.L., Kalscheuer, R., Bavro, V.N. and Bhatt, A. (2019) The mycolic acid reductase Rv2509 has distinct structural motifs and is essential for growth in slow-growing mycobacteria. Molecular Microbiology

Dr Harun Rashid, a graduate of the first cohort of MIBTP students, based at the University of Warwick, has recently published two papers as a result of his PhD research:

1.  Rashid, M.H.A., Cheng, W. and Thomas, B. 2019. Temporal and Spatial Expression of Arabidopsis Gene Homologs Control Daylength Adaptation and Bulb Formation in Onion (Allium cepa L.). Scientific Reports, 9: 14629. 

2.  Rashid, M.H.A. and Thomas, B. 2019. Diurnal Expression of Arabidopsis Gene Homologs during Daylength-Regulated Bulb Formation in Onion (Allium cepa L.). Scientia Horticulturae, 261: 108946. 

Jess Watts, a Warwick 2017 student, is the 2019 recipient of the Brewster Scholarship, which is awarded to an SLS PhD student in their second year of research whose work relates to crop improvement. The scholarship is funded by a generous donation in memory of Dr Jim Brewster, a former member of Wellesbourne staff. The title of Jess's project is The role of secretion in phosphate uptake in Brassica; a description of the project is as follows:

Phosphate is an essential macronutrient required for crop growth, however its availability is often a limiting factor hindering crop yield, especially as the majority of phosphate within soil is inaccessible as organic phosphate. Many plants have adapted ways to improve the accessibility of phosphate, such as through the secretion of various compounds into the surrounding soil which help to mobilise the phosphate and improve uptake. I am looking at how Brassica crops which have differing phosphate efficiencies cope with low phosphate conditions compared to high phosphate conditions, with particular interest in the proteomic changes of the roots and the root secretions. If we can pin point what is different about the crops which are efficient in phosphate acquisition during low phosphate conditions, then we can use this to improve the efficiency of crop lines, improving phosphate utilisation and consequently enhance growth.

Carys Howell, a 3rd year Birmingham MIBTP student, received a travel grant, the FEBs youth travel fund (YTF), to attend the Europhosphatase 2019 conference. The travel grant covered the conference fee, accommodation and money towards travel costs.

Carys attended the conference, which took place 11th-16th June; at which she also won a poster prize.

Final year Warwick student Robyn Wright has just published her 1st paper as a result of her PhD research. The paper is published in Microbiome and is entitled Understanding microbial community dynamics to improve optimum microbiome selection.

Marta Poblocka, a Leicester 3rd year MIBTP student, recently won 1st prize for best poster and 2nd prize for best abstract at the University of Leicester student symposium. The title of Marta's poster and abstract was: Targeting Senescent Cells with Antibody-Drug Conjugates.

Eline Hendrix, Birmingham 2016 MIBTP student, was awarded the best poster prize at the recent Midlands Academy of Medical Sciences Research Festival. The festival is a unique biomedical and health research event designed to bring early career researchers together to present their work, meet one another and to network with senior researchers. This year's event took place on 27th March 2019 at Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre in Birmingham and focussed on three research areas: Diabetes, Cancer and Respiratory Science. Eline was one of 55 PhD students/post-docs to present a poster.

Rachel Clewes, Warwick 3rd year MIBTP student, has recently published a paper with her supervisor Professor Lorenzo Frigerio. The paper is entitled Aquaporins influence seed dormancy and germination in response to stress and was published on the online library, Wiley.

Leicester 3rd year MIBTP student Marta Poblocka contributed to a recent publication, Detecting and targeting senescent cells using molecularly imprinted nanoparticles. The paper was published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Final year University of Warwick student Robyn Wright was awarded best seminar presentation voted by staff in memory of Xue Jiang at the recent Student Symposium. Robyn's talk was entitled Food or a free ride? The ability of a marine microbial community to degrade plastics.

Third year MIBTP Warwick student Christian Moller-Olsen was awarded one to top five posters at the University of Warwick Student Symposium. His poster was entitled Molecular and cellular mechanisms of in vitro phage therapy.

First year Warwick MIBTP student, Beth Richmond, contributed to the paper Regulation of resource partitioning coordinates nitrogen and rhizobia responses and autoregulation of nodulation in the legume Medicago which was published on the website www.cell.com.

Liam Walker, a final year Warwick student on the MIBTP programme, has had a first author publication in the journal Plant Methods. The paper is entitled 3DCellAtlas Meristem: a tool for the global cellular annotation of shoot apical meristems.

Marisa Di Monaco, Warwick third year MIBTP student, was awarded 1 of 5 best posters at the University of Warwick PGR Student Symposium. Marisa's poster was entitled: "What is the function of a cytoplasm-eating related protein in the nucleus?"