Postgraduate Prospectus

It was during my undergraduate degree that I started to become interested in microbiology, which led me to enrol on a taught MSc course in medical microbiology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. During my year there I learnt much more about microbial pathogenesis and disease, but ultimately it was my three month research project which made me realise that a career in research was for me. I applied to Nottingham not only because of the potential PhD project, but because of the reputation of both the department and my potential supervisor.

My PhD centres on diversity within populations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, particularly within the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) lung. The CF lung provides numerous opportunities for microenvironments to develop, all of which can become a niche for this opportunistic pathogen. I am interested in how diversity affects the organism’s behaviour with regards to Quorum Sensing during both acute and chronic infections.

I am now in the third year of my PhD and can honestly say I have no regrets about my decision to join the lab in Nottingham. I am in the School of Molecular Medical Sciences, which alone has an outstanding reputation for research, with the majority of my lab work completed in the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences which provides state of the art equipment and facilities in which to carry out your work. With such a large group of PhD students, Post-doctoral researchers and academics, there is plenty of opportunity to collaborate and share your ideas, something you would not get from working in some smaller laboratories. Being so close to other departments and the Queen’s Medical Centre also provide the perfect basis for translational research and collaboration.

As a PhD student I have been given many opportunities to become involved in events within the school, for example helping to organise the annual Postgraduate Research Day. Events like this and the opportunity to present at conferences in the UK and Europe have given me an incredibly well rounded and exciting PhD experience so far.

My advice to prospective PhD students is to keep up to date with recently published literature concerning your research topic and manage your time well, but most of all take advantage of the expertise available to you from other researchers within the lab and your supervisors, this is the most valuable of all.