DMU Health and Life Sciences PGR Conference 2024

The Faculty of Health and Life Sciences PGR conference was held on 1st May this year. Our PhD students contributed towards the organisation of the event, with Brandon Moulds chairing the conference committee, and Gemma Cooper and Dolgormaa Jamchivlamdan as student members. The conference consisted of various sessions including posters, flash talks, workshops and presentations by Ph.D. and M.Res students from the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.

Brandon presented a flash talk about his research on disinfection of norovirus. Gemma presented a poster on her work investigating the antiviral activity of volatile Nigella sativa compounds, for which she was awarded second place in the Poster Competition!

In addition, Gemma and Brandon organised workshops on wider transferable skills. Alongside Dr Harprit Singh, Gemma presented a workshop on giving good presentations and improving scientific communication.

Finally, Gemma and Brandon presented a workshop on our outreach activities - "How can an 8-year-old with a NERF gun help your PhD viva?" - a talk which generated much interest and enthusiasm for engaging with public outreach activities!

Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2024

The Microbiology Society Annual Conference was held on 8 - 11th April, in Edinburgh UK, and this year, had a strong representation of microbiologists from the School of Pharmacy, De Montfort University!

PhD students Gemma and Brandon

DMU students enjoy Edinburgh!

Our PhD students, Gemma Cooper and Brandon Moulds had the opportunity to present their research at the conference, and benefited from some lovely feedback and many suggestions for future directions. Gemma gave a talk about her project investigating the antiviral potential of volatile compounds from Nigella sativa in the Virus Workshop: Translating knowledge - Understanding and Preventing Disease; Brandon presented a poster on his research on tackling norovirus by a novel disinfection method.

The lab presents our research

Gemma talks about antivirals

Brandon presents his poster

A particular highlight was the Peter Wildy Prize Lecture by Dr Lucy Thorne (Imperial College London), who gave a fantastic talk about her various outreach activities, with a great overview on routes into getting involved with public engagement. The Celebration of Virology session started off the conference with a range of fascinating virology talks, with the diversity of topics extending across the four days.

Aside from the science, the conference offered our PhD students an opportunity to explore the beautiful Edinburgh, and meet and mingle with other virologists. The Careers Session - Transitions: Career paths outside academia was an interesting session, with an inspiring talk by Dr Ashley Otter (From Petri Dishes to Pandemics: A career in public health at the UK Health Security Agency).

Overall, the conference was a great opportunity for us to present our research, get feedback from the community, and return to the lab with many ideas for our next experiments!

Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard Award

We are delighted that Maitreyi has been awarded an Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard Award, which aims to support early career researchers within the biomedical sciences.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and SARS and MERS outbreaks in recent years has highlighted to need for new antiviral therapies. Through this grant, we will be developing novel host-targeting antivirals against current and emerging coronaviruses.

Viruses typically hijack several host cell pathways, and targeting key proteins required by coronaviruses will allow us to identify new broad-spectrum antivirals that can target all coronavirus infections.

We'd like to thank the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Springboard programme funders, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Wellcome, British Heart Foundation, and Diabetes UK, for the opportunity to undertake this research and support the lab.