I did my first degree in Applied Chemistry at Al Baath university, I particularly enjoyed chemical modules on my course and decided to pursue my further career by doing the AS:MIT MSc programme at the University of Warwick. The first half of the year was taught courses and I was particularly excited by Biology, I choose my research project in Biological field.

Title of my Project

Analytical Method Development for Metallomics and Metalloproteomics

Abstract of my Project

My project concerns a method developed to isolate and characterise biogenic copper- and zinc-binding ligands produced by cyanobacteria isolated from the Sargasso Sea in the north Atlantic ocean. Several types of copper and zinc binding ligands were found in culture supernatants; some ligands are already present in the natural sea water based growth medium and appear to be taken up by Synechococcus sp. strain WH8102, and others are secreted into the growth medium by these bacteria. Zinc and copper-complexes were isolated and detected by using SPE cartridges composed of polystyrene-divinylbenzene resin, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), ultra high pressure liquid chromatography quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF), and immobilised-metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) with UV-visible spectrophotometry. It was found that SPE cartridge with polystyrene-divinylbenzene resin is suitable for extracting zinc and copper binding ligands from the Sargasso Sea.