Profile

Music is my biggest hobby. I’ve been in a higher voice choir for a year, in which I sing soprano (highest voice). Brass banding was such an important part of my upbringing, and is where I made most of my friends, but finishing off my PhD has meant I haven’t had the time or energy to play in a band recently.

I’m also a huge cinephile (film-lover)! I have a cinema membership, so I go to the cinema to see all the latest releases. I particularly like period dramas and science fiction films.

I also enjoy drinking matcha lattes, listening to investigative podcasts, watching documentaries, going for a run, cross-stitching, eating sticky toffee pudding, and playing adventure video games.

A lot of antibiotics work by attacking the membrane of bacteria. The membrane is a thin layer on the outside of a bacterial cell. When this membrane is attacked, holes form in the membrane, and the bacterial cell is destroyed, as all the important components inside the bacteria are forced out.

My research looks at understanding how two specific antibiotics work. These antibiotics are peptides (small molecules), that are taken from the skin of frogs, and form part of the frogs’ natural immune system. We think the two antibiotics work together to provide an even better antibiotic effect, but we don’t know why.

I use a special type of microscopy, and a model of the bacterial membrane, to study these antibiotics. I can detect and see the holes that form in the membrane, and begin to understand the reasoning behind their cooperativity. We hope that further down the line, we could programme this cooperativity into other antibiotics, to make them more effective.

When I start setting up the experiments, I have to turn on all the machines I need for my microscopy. This includes the lasers, the special camera, a laser shutter and the microscope light. I then need to “tune” the lasers, which means optimising the amount of power I get from them. I also need to align my images on the camera by adjusting a mirror.

I then need to prepare the experimental materials. I process some glass in an oxygen-rich environment, and add a gel to the glass. I then put a plastic device on the glass, and add more gel to make everything stick together. I add an oil to little wells in the plastic device. I also prepare tiny droplets in oil, which contain the antibiotics in interested in studying.

Once ready, I add the droplets into the little wells, and use the microscope to look at these. When a membrane has formed, I use the lasers to detect special chemicals that light up (fluorophores), which help me see where the membrane holes have formed.

I then process that data using special software and code.