The Centre for Genetics and Genomics, which is part of the School of Biology, has undergone a period of rapid expansion and currently houses 33 research groups. By encouraging a diversity of interests and supporting multidisciplinary approaches, we have the flexibility and resources to capitalise on our discoveries, develop and exploit new areas of research, foster collaborations and attract young investigators to establish new groups, all of which help sustain a thriving intellectual environment.
In the Research Assessment Exercise 2008, 90 per cent of our research was considered internationally competitive or better, and 50 per cent was judged to be internationally excellent and world-leading.
The School of Biology has thriving PhD and MRes programmes and recruits around 35 postgraduate students every year. Our research interests are wide ranging and span from fundamental studies in molecular biology, developmental biology, microbiology and genome dynamics, through population biology, evolutionary genetics and human genetics, to parasitology. Some research groups are located within the Queen’s Medical Centre, which provides a number of core scientific support services and facilitates links to clinical research.
Research is supported by programme and project grants from the UK Research Councils (MRC, BBSRC, NERC) and Charities (The Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation), from the EU, and from the US National Institutes of Health.
We place emphasis on research scholarship but also aim to develop skills applicable to a wide variety of careers. During the first two years of study PhD students may undertake formal training in computing, presentation skills, design and analysis of experiments, and other 'top-up' courses. Students also contribute to seminar meetings, discussion groups, and literature reviews.
The barriers between traditional scientific disciplines are now disappearing with the result that postgraduates are no longer constrained by their early training and often work at the interface between disciplines where some of the most exciting discoveries are made. This trend is especially evident within biology. Recent years have seen considerable unification of biological disciplines brought about by advances in genetics and cell biology, coupled with genome analyses and bioinformatics. Cross-fertilization of ideas and a flow of information from model organisms to humans have become commonplace. Our postgraduate programme exposes students to cutting-edge research at the international forefront.
Recent Developments
The School of Biology and the Centre for Genetics and Genomics continuously update and improve the postgraduate training by providing new courses and discussion groups relevant to the science students are actually doing. These complement existing courses for generic and specialist skill training. Infrastructure support in the School/Centre is also continuously improving and we have recently added to our imaging and genomics facilities and have appointed experts in these areas to support the current research. Many of the laboratories have undergone recent refurbishment and further refurbishment will be done over the next few years. We now provide a leased laptop to all incoming graduate students for the duration of their graduate studies. These developments and improvements to our research and graduate training make an exciting and exhilarating place to study even better.
Research in School and Centre covers a wide range of areas in Biology and Genetics. Current research projects include:
· genetic diversity and speciation
· population, evolutionary and conservation genetics
· genome evolution
· human genetic diversity
· molecular genetics of human disorders including heart disease, muscle disorders and Alzheimer’s
· sex in fungi
· molecular effects of stress
· fungal genomics
· developmental genetics
· micro RNAs and RNAi
· stem cells biology
· regulatory networks
· cancer genetics
· epigenetics
· DNA repair and recombination
· genome stability
· bacterial motility
· immunogenetics of parasites
· chromosome biology including centromeres and telomeres
· cell biology and macromolecular interactions
· parasite variation
· behavioural ecology
· community ecology
· adaptive behaviour
· toxicology
· electrophysiology and neurobiology
Details of these can be found on the Centre for Genetics and Genomics and School of Biology web pages.