Assorted Work

In BS914, a module run by Dr David Whitworth (now at Aberystwyth University) we were given the task of reviewing/discussing a current "systems biology" paper, and putting together a website presenting the information. My website may be viewed here.

First group poster on SNAREpins, a review of Weber et al; SNAREpins: Minimal Machinery for Membrane Fusion, Cell, Vol. 92, 759–772, March 20, 1998.

Miniprojects

My first MSc miniproject entitled "Bioinformatic characterisation of fungal sequences regulating expression and localisation" was supervised by Dr Kerry Burton from Warwick HRI, with input from Dr Mike Challen. This was a dry project, and attracted interest from Dr Sascha Ott who became a second supervisor.

The intention of this project was to discover subsequences in proteins responsible for targeting to specific organelles, making it possible to design tags to localise recombinant protein in the mushroom Agaricus bisporus, a basidomycyte. At the time, the only completed fungal genomes were Sacchromyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus nidulans, both members of the ascomycota, a phylum which diverged from the basidiomycota around 400mya. Some sequences were available from the more closely related Coprinus cinereus. During this project I had my first experience with Perl and Bioperl, using the Ensembl API to extract yeast sequences from the genome database. This was also the first time I installed and used Linux in order to run command-line only software. The bulk of the work was performed using a local BLASTN database, MEME (both online, and in a local installation) and SignalP.

View Poster or Report or Presentation (requires Warwick Login).

A. bisporus, "Button Mushroom"