Symposium 2019 Booklet 4Website II.Pdf
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CONTENTS Foreword……………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Symposium programme ………………………………………………………………. 4 Meet our speakers ……………………………………………………………………….. 5 Student abstracts …………………………………………………………………………. 9 Theme 1: Genetic Processes and Proteins ………………………….. 10 Theme 2: Environmental Biology and Ecology …………………… 17 Theme 3: Health and Nutrition …………………………………………... 23 Theme 4: Fundamental meets Synthetic Biology ………………… 29 Theme 5: Body Brain and Behaviour ………………………………….. 34 Poster design: © Liat Adler 2 Welcome to the EASTBIO Annual Symposium 2019 A very warm welcome to attendees at the 2019 Annual Symposium of the BBSRC-funded EASTBIO Doctoral Training Partnership. The Annual Symposium represents one of the highlights in the EASTBIO calendar. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Bioscience Research: To Biology and Beyond!’ The two-day Symposium brings together guest speakers and four cohorts of our PhD students to discuss the broad range of interdisciplinary research conducted across the partnership spanning from bioscience for health to biotechnology and food security. We hope you will enjoy the proceedings! Dr Edgar Huitema School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee On behalf of the EASTBIO Management Group & the Symposium Organising Committee 3 EASTBIO ANNUAL RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM: TO BIOLOGY AND BEYOND! University of Dundee, Dalhousie Building - 13-14 June 2019 Day 1 Schedule – 13 June 2019 10:30 Registration & coffee/tea The Street, School of Life Sciences - note different venue 11:00-11:10 Welcome & Introduction Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Chairs: Dr Edgar Huitema & student reps 11:10-11:40 Keynote address Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Abigail L. Harris (Strategy & Policy Officer, UKRI BBSRC) “Career and development opportunities for BBSRC students” Chair: Dr Edgar Huitema 11:40-12:15 Speed-dating Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Chairs: Amy Cooper & Meg Peyton Jones 12:15-13:00 Poster session Dalhousie, Room 1S01 Chair: Cameron Malcolm 13:00-14:00 Lunch & coffee/tea The Street, School of Life Sciences - note different venue 14:00-15:45 Student talks I: Genetic Processes & Proteins Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Professor Chris Ponting (MRC Institute of Genetics & Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh) “Focus on function: From genome to base pair” Co-chairs: Sam Haynes & Ana Rozman 14:00-15:45 Student talks II: Environmental Biology & Ecology Dalhousie, Room 1F06 Professor Colin Moffat (Scottish Government, Marine Scotland) “The necessity for linking biology, chemistry and physics and including social, economic and cultural aspects when managing the human activities impacting on our seas” Co-chair: Rebecca Maguire 15:45-16:00 Coffee/tea break Room 1F01, 1FO6 16:00-17:30 Student talks III: Health and Nutrition Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Dr Andreas Kolb (The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen) “Drivers of obesity and potential nutritional interventions” Co-chair: Gemma Fisher 16:00-17:30 Student talks IV: Fundamental meets Synthetic Biology Dalhousie, Room 1F06 Dr Peter Murray-Rust (Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge) “Early career researchers and open healthcare” Co-chairs: Liat Adler & Alysha Knight 17:30 Close of day 1 West Park Conference Centre Check-in at West Park Conference Centre & Invercarse Hotel Coach available for attendees 19:00 EASTBIO Dinner, followed by a Ceilidh dance Best Western Queens Hotel Day 2 Schedule – 14 June 2019 9:30 Late registration The Street, School of Life Sciences - note different venue 10:00-10:10 Welcome & Introduction Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Chairs: Student reps 10:10-12:40 Student talks V: Body, Brain & Behaviour (cognitive) Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Professor Nicola Clayton FRS (Comparative Cognition) and Professor Clive Wilkins MMC (Artist-in-Residence) - Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge “The Dancer remembers: The choreography of the mind and body” Co-chairs: Suzi Keane 10:10-12:40 Student talks V: Body, Brain & Behaviour (general) Dalhousie, Room 1F06 Professor Gernot Riedel (Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen) with Dr Carole Torsney (Centre for Discovery, Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh) “Sex and injury dependent nociceptor plasticity” Co-chairs: Amy Cooper & Kiani Jeacock 12:40-13:30 Lunch & coffee/tea The Street, School of Life Sciences - note different venue 13:30-14:10 Science Pub Quiz Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Chair: Suzi Keane 14:10-15:30 “Career paths, career stories” (panel discussion) Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre Dr Tim George (James Hutton, Dundee), Dr Holly Corrigall (GSK), Dr Eleanor Gaunt (Roslin, Edinburgh), Professor Chris Ponting (Edinburgh), Professor Gernot Riedel (Aberdeen), Dr Ben Rutter (Marks & Clerk LLP, Cambridge), Dr David Walker (Glasgow) Chairs: Courtney Aitken & Meg Peyton Jones 15:30-16:00 Prize-giving; concluding remarks. Close of Symposium with a drinks reception Dalhousie, Lecture Theatre & Chairs: Dr Edgar Huitema & student reps Mezzanine level 4 Meet our speakers! Professor Nicky Clayton FRS is Professor of Comparative Cognition in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, UK and Visiting Professor at the Nanging University’s Institute of technology, China. She is particularly interested in the processes of thinking with and without words and comparisons between the cognitive abilities of corvids (members of the crow family) and children. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2010. She is also Scientist-in-Residence at Rambert (formerly Ballet Rambert), a position she has held since 2011. Dr Holly Corrigall recently completed her PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Aberdeen where she was studying ribosomal responses to induced translational pausing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. As part of her PhD she undertook her PIPs placement in the Disruptive Technologies team in Biopharm Process Research (BPR) department at GlaxoSmithKline in Stevenage. Prior to her PhD, she completed her Master’s in Systems and Synthetic Biology, also at the University of Aberdeen, during which she investigated DNA replication and ‘on-demand’ histone synthesis during S-phase in humans through both lab-work and mathematical modelling. Previous to that, she gained her BSc (Hons) in Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee. Since finishing her PhD she has returned to GSK in Stevenage to work in the Cell Line Development team in BPR which is responsible for the generation of clonal, stable and fully-traceable cell lines for commercial manufacture. Her role is to integrate new technologies to optimise recombinant protein expression within GSK’s platform cell line. Dr Eleanor Gaunt (Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh) did her undergraduate in Medical Microbiology at Newcastle University (graduating in 2006), before moving to Edinburgh to undertake her PhD researching the Clinical Correlates and Epidemiology of Respiratory Viruses, completed in 2010. She did a two year postdoc in Cambridge working on rotaviruses before returning to Edinburgh for a second postdoc working with picornaviruses. She remained in Edinburgh for a third postdoc working with influenza A virus, during which time she won a Wellcome Trust/ Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, which she took up in October 2018 to work on the molecular biology of influenza A virus. Dr Tim George is a principal investigator at the James Hutton Institute in the middle stage of his career, with a track record that includes the publication of over 85 papers, the winning of grants with a total value in excess of £14M from a range of research funders and the generation of a growing international network. His research is focused on the role that plant genotypic and phenotypic diversity plays in controlling important biogeochemical cycles of nutrients and water in the rhizosphere soil surrounding roots. His research is undertaken at a range of scales from the cell to the field and I have taken advantage of facilities including genomics and sequencing, through plant genetic populations to long-term field trials. This research is applied in a multidisciplinary way with regular interactions with geneticists, molecular biologists, microbiologists, agronomists, statisticians and social scientists. I have established strong multidisciplinary research groups both within the James Hutton Institute, within the 5 SEFARI institutes in Scotland, as part of consortia within the UK and within Europe in FP7 and H2020 projects. I have also established interactions with researchers in China, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, I have shown leadership in both the conceptualisation, direction and management of work packages and research deliverables in the Scottish Governments programme of research administered by RESAS. Abigail L. Harris (Strategy & Policy Officer, UKRI BBSRC) completed her PhD on testis development in mice at the University of Oxford before moving into the world of science policy and strategy. Having completed a policy internship at the Royal Society, and after a short period working for the British Pharmacological Society, she started a role in BBSRC. Here she began by focussing on BBSRC strategy around new technologies, including bioimaging. After 6 months, she joined the Skills and Talent team and is now managing BBSRC’s David Phillips and Discovery Fellowships. Her current role also focuses on BBSRC strategy and policy around early career researchers and technical careers. Dr Andreas Kolb (The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen) Andreas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Rowett