Profile

I live in Lancaster where I’m in the final year of my PhD. I’ve just bought a house so most of my free time is taken up with decorating and DIY at the moment – feeling like a proper grown up! I go back home to Manchester every weekend to see my family and my two cats and I also work part time in my sister’s restaurant.

I like going out for runs – I live near a canal, rive and the sea so there are lots of nice places to explore near my house. I also like growing plants in my little yard, I’ve got sunflowers, salad, peas and tomato plants in containers which bring me lots of happiness 🙂

Lockdown has brought out my inner baker, I’ve been making muffins, doughnuts and bagels (and trying not to put on too much weight…).

My research is part-funded by a company who I work with. The use compounds that are already known to help plants grow better and change the chemical structure slightly – once the compound has been changed to create a new compound it’s called an ‘analogue’.

I tested the analogues to see if they helped roots grow better in rice and thale cress. Both of these are what you call model crop species – they’re used a lot in research and they have had their DNA mapped so certain traits can be attributed to specific genes. This allows scientists to pinpoint bits of the DNA that are particularly interesting and tweak them – either by creating mutants or applying different compounds to them.

Once I’d found analogues that did make the roots grow better, I tested the to see if they help roots grow even when they’re under drought or salt stress.

The final bit of my research involved finding out which genes are switched on or off in response to applying the compounds using a technique called qPCR – it amplifies sections of the DNA so you can see if the genes are more or less active than the control.

I’m also developing a model so that recommendations can be made to the company about where they should apply their compounds based on weather data, rice growing data and the topography of areas.

I have a lot of freedom about when I go into work, and even where I work. Some days I’ll be in the lab all day preparing solutions or my compounds to apply to my plants. Other days I’ll be in the glasshouses taking measurements to see how well my plants are growing. Other days I’ll have lab meetings where me or my workmates will present our recent work and discuss it with other students and our supervisors. Some days I’ll be at my desk all day, these days I can work from home if I want – as long as the job gets done nobody minds where I do it! My desk based jobs are varied – sometimes I have to do chemistry calculations, other days I have to analyse data I’ve collected in the lab and then write about it. Sometimes I have to make presentations to prepare for a meeting
Every day is different, and I get to choose what I do and when I do it – I’m very lucky and I love it!