MIBTP students Niamh Harrington and lyas Alav have published an open access protocol for testing susceptibility of Pseudomonas Staphylococcus biofilm to antibiotics in a model of Cystic Fibrosis with Dr Esther Sweeney, John Moat and Dr Freya Harrison in the JoVE journal. Read the paper.

Birmingham final year student Ilyas Alav has had a number of publications as a result of research relating to his PhD. These can be viewed on the following webpages:

• https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?rev=2&id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1008101
• https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/fmb-2019-0235
• https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02319/full
• https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.ac2020.po0095

Final year Warwick student, Hadyn Parker, attended the Acid Fast Club Winter 2021 meeting on 8th January. The conference consisted of predominantly UK based Tuberculosis researchers and experts, of which approximately 140 people were in attendance. His abstract on ‘Asymmetric trehalose analogues to probe disaccharide processing pathways in mycobacteria’ had been selected for a talk and he presented a 20 minute presentation (Via Zoom). Hadyn's talk was voted by members as being the best early career presentation of the conference.

Birmingham 3rd year MIBTP student Gabrielle Christie (and her lab group) has published a paper, in the journal Virulence entitled, Antimicrobial resistance and gene regulation in Enteroaggregative Escherichia coli from Egyptian children with diarrhoea: Similarities and differences. This is Gabrielle's second publication during her PhD.

Birmingham final year MIBTP Jake Carter is one of the scientists behind the development of the worlds fastest covid test, delivering results in just 5 minutes.

The development, hailed as a world first, could be the breakthrough to help get more people safely back to work and play, and control outbreaks more effectively.

Jake's supervisor, Professor Tim Dafforn, praised Jake for leading the breakthrough by working 'incredible hours' through the pandemic.

Prof Dafforn added: "He said he wanted to make a difference, and create a Covid assay, he went into the lab on his own and, though we provided the intellectual support, he has been incredible. He drew on his family to help him, with the data analysis by his dad, who runs an IT firm.

"He completely went into this with his whole heart and deserves every praise. We are the professors behind it but he has put in incredible hours."

The test is on course to be fully tested and ready by Easter.

Final year Leicester student Kellie, won the best poster prize and sponsor choice best research image at the Molecular and cell biology PhD student symposium in September this year.

Kate Lewis, a Warwick final year student, published a paper in Frontier in Veterinary Science about the impact of farm management practices on prevalence of lameness in lambs.

Sophie Edwards, Birmingham final year student, was awarded the 2020 American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) International Student Award, based upon her publication in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

MIBTP Birmingham student Jake Carter has published a paper entitled Combining bacteriophage engineering and linear dichroism spectroscopy to produce a DNA hybridisation assay in the journal RSC Chemical Biology.

Second year Birmingham student Libby Anthony, along with the Sadler Group, has published a Chemical Science review paper as a result of work undertaken during her first mini-project.

MIBTP student Andy Gladman is this year’s runner up in the Marsh Horticultural Science Award presented in collaboration with the RHS. The award recognises the exceptional progress Andy has made in his research on the management of aphid pests in Brassica crops. Find out more.

Catherine Hooper, a Birmingham second year student, along with the other members of The Hannon group, has recently published work in JACS. The paper is entitled “Rotaxanating Metallo-supramolecular Nano-cylinder Helicates to Switch DNA Junction Binding”.

Final year Warwick student, Hadyn recently (February 2020) had success at the Mycobacterial Heterogeneity & Host Tissue Tropism symposium in New Delhi, India where he presented his research and was awarded the top emerging cellular microbiologist prize for his poster and research.

The data he presented was recently published, as 1^st author (and 1^st publication) in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry where he synthesised novel analogues of the sugar trehalose and investigated their uptake and metabolism in mycobacteria using a range of biochemical techniques.

Birmingham MIBTP student Alex has been awarded a Wellcome Trust ISSF Accelerator fellowship of £60,000.

Alex will use this money to visit the University of Melbourne for 9 months in 2021 to develop adeno-associated viral methods of tagging of extracellular vesicle proteins. This work will help to improve understanding of the biological significance of extracellular vesicles and puts him in a great position to apply for further funding.

Congratulations also to Alex; he has just submitted his PhD thesis and on completion of his viva and any corrections, will soon be Dr Alex Seabright.