Supervisor(s): 

Professor Nikolay Zenkin and Dr Peter Chivers

Former shelf stacker at Tesco, I decided that I could do a lot more with myself. I put myself through college and University, studying Biochemistry, eventually earning a First Class degree. I came straight from the back of my undergraduate degree to begin my PhD in the CBCB (Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology). Ultimately, I would like to find myself researching cancer and ageing. The decision to investigate a bacterial system may seem counter-intuitive for my aims but the majority of my project is in vitro biochemistry and I am learning other skills transferrable to research into eukaryotic proteins and systems. But the main reasons I chose my project are firstly because it aligned with my interests of biology and chemistry and secondly both the University and project supervisor sold me on the project.

Regulation of transcription elongation within coupled transcription-translation. 

Investigating the molecular mechanisms of transcription elongation biochemically. Specifically, within the context of transcription-translation coupling within a reconstituted in vitro system. Transcription and translation machinery are purified and alongside any other necessary accessory proteins, are assembled to mimic basic gene expression. Each component of the system can then be interrogated to learn more about their roles within the so called ‘expressome’, the name given to a directly coupled RNA polymerase and ribosome upon RNA. This project seeks to provide evidence that will improve our understanding of the fundamentals of this particular phenomenon within bacteria– specifically E. coli. The techniques used within the project are mostly pure biochemistry, with cloning, protein purification and some other supplementary techniques.