News

Inara Liepina, Leicester 2014 MIBTP student, is part of a group who have won their regional heat to reach the final of the Biotechnology Yes competition in London next month.

Inara and her team mates (Leicester students Akang E. Ekpenyong-Akiba, Razif Abas and Meetal S. Solanki) who named themselves the Hotbronze Product Group, formulated a novel self-tanning lotion (CareTan) that can stimulate melanocytes to produce more melanin, giving rise to an even and long lasting skin tan.

Hotbronze Product Group were one of two winning teams from their heat who will now compete at the final on 5th December 2016 in London.

Ruth Pauli, an MIBTP 2015 student based at the University of Birmingham, has had a paper published on the National Center for Biotechnology Information website in the journal Frontiers in Neuroinformatics.

The paper was a result of Ruth's first mini-project placement with Professor Thomas Nicholls, which she undertook at the University of Warwick during her training year.

The paper, entitled, Exploring fMRI Results Space: 31 Variants of an fMRI Analysis in AFNI, FSL, and SPM, can be viewed on the NCBI website.

The 2016 cohort have just begun their training on the MIBTP programme with 60 students across the three Universities joining us this year.

The student have already undertaken an intensive induction week at the University of Warwick and are now part way through the taught module element of their training year.

We wish the new students the best of luck with their training.

MIBTP students were successful once again at this years Warwick School of Life Sciences Student Symposium.

Natasha Dzimitrowicz (2013 cohort; pictured with her poster) won one of the best poster prizes, an award of £25. Kathryn Styles (2012 cohort) won a £50 award for one of the five best seminars as voted for by students; as did Mussa Quareshy (2012 cohort) who also won best seminar as voted for by SLS staff (an award of £50).

Harun Rashid, 2012 Warwick student, has just been awarded a Vegetable Research Fund (VRT) to allow him to attend the Plant Biology 2016 Conference in the USA this summer. The conference, organised by American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), will be held in Austin, Texas on 9-13 July 2016.

2012 cohort Warwick student Harun Rasid has just had an artice accepted for publication by Journal Acta Horticulturae.

The article is co-authored by A. H. Massiah and B. Thomas and is entitled "Genetic regulation of day length adaptation and bulb formation in onion (Allium cepa L.)"

Mussa Quareshy, who is a 2012 cohort Warwick student, has just been awarded two travel grants in order to allow him to attend The International Plant Growth Substances Association 2016 meeting in Toronto.

The grants, awarded by the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Vegetable Research Trust (VRT), will enable Mussa to present his work on novel auxin herbicide discovery at the meeting.

Chris Morgan, 2012 Birmingham MIBTP student, was the winning entry into the University of Birmingham's Images of Research competition for postgraduate researchers, where PGRs are encouraged to summarise their research in a single image.

Chris entitled his image Feeding the world with plant science.  The following text accompanied the image:

As Earth’s population continues to grow, so too does the demand for sustainable food production. A large proportion of the UK’s plant science research is aimed at generating plants with new beneficial characteristics, such as increased drought tolerance or higher yield. Translating these beneficial characteristics to crop plants, such as wheat and maize, will help to address some of the problems associated with ensuring future global food security.

This image shows seedlings of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana germinating on an agar petri dish. We are using molecular biology to investigate how a special form of cell division called meiosis is controlled and regulated in Arabidopsis. By investigating meiosis we aim to understand how genetic material (DNA) is reshuffled and passed between parents and offspring in plants. We can then use this knowledge to inform and improve current plant breeding technologies, hopefully allowing plant breeders to generate novel crop varieties with desirable traits.

Matt Teft, a second year MIBTP (Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership) student, is part of a team that has won an award for Public Engagement at the University of Warwick Staff Awards.

The MIBTP is a BBSRC funded Doctoral Training Partnership between the Universities of Warwick, Birmingham and Leicester. As part of their training, the BBSRC requires students to complete a Professional Internship for Phd Students (PIPS). Matt participated in the University's activities at the Cheltenham Science Festival in June 2015 as part of his PIPS and has written a blog of his experience: blogs.warwick.ac.uk/mibtp/entry/cheltenham_science_festival

Matt is a PhD student with Dr Miriam Gifford in the School of Life Sciences working on a project entitled 'Investigating conservation of function of SCARECROW-LIKE/GRAS transcription factors and their interactions in controlling root architecture responses'.

Matt Teft, a second year MIBTP student, is part of a team that has been nominated for the Warwick University Staff Awards - in the Public Engagement Category. Matt participated in the University's activities at Cheltenham Science Festival as part of his PIPS. The awards evening is on March 11th so fingers crossed!

Claire Stoker is an author on a paper demonstraing that a plant hormone, jasmonate, drives time-of-day differences in susceptibility of Arabidopsis to the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea.

The research, done in collaboration with the University of Cape Town, discovered that plants show different levels of susceptibility to B. cinerea when infected at different times of the day. When plants were infected in the morning they were less susceptible than when they were infected at night. This difference is driven by the circadian clock and relies on the jasmonic acid signalling pathway.

You can read the full paper here and watch a video about this research.

MIBTP student Michael McLeod wins October's Shell LiveWIRE Smarter Future Award for his business Universal Resource Trading. Universal Resource Trading provides an easy way for universities to recoup space, generate revenue and prevent waste of their unwanted equipment. Michael's business won £5000 start up funds and coaching from senior Shell business leaders. You can read more about Michael's business and watch his elevator pitch video here.

If you are interested in applying to the scheme - more details can be found on this page.

Nathaniel Davies, 2012 cohort, is one of the authors named on a new paper published on the CSH Press Genome Research website. The paper is entitled 'DNA methylation changes induced by long and short photoperiods in Nasonia' and can be viewed on the CSH Press website.

Richard Meek, of the 2013 MIBTP cohort, has recently had his first author publication in Plos Biology. The publication is a result of his PIPS placement, undertaken during his training year.

The article, entitled Nonmedical Uses of Antibiotics: Time to Restrict Their Use? was based on a 11,000 word report for the UK All Parliamentary Group on antibiotics, which Richard also first authored. This report can be viewed on the APPG website.