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New Electrophoresis Equipment for Life Science Researchers
The purchase of new Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis apparatus will directly benefit the research of two new lecturers in Life Sciences.
The Faculty of Health's allocation of capital funds from the Higher Education Funding Council for England has enabled £11,400 to be spent on the equipment, which is currently being commissioned in the Haldane Laboratory in the Huxley Building.
Dr Catherine Merrick, who joined Keele in 2011 as Lecturer in Biology, and Dr Mark Skidmore, who came to Keele in 2010 as Lecturer in Biochemistry, will both use the equipment in their latest projects, for which substantial grants are either awarded or now being sought from the Research Councils.
Catherine Merrick was initially educated and trained at Cambridge University and Cancer Research UK, and has already enjoyed a varied career which has included the Harvard School of Public Health in the USA, where she began to study the epigenetic control of virulence genes in the malaria parasite, and a field study at the Medical Research Council's Institute in The Gambia, West Africa, investigating clinical phenotypes and the expression of virulence genes in patients with malaria. At Keele the new equipment will enable her to employ karyotyping techniques as well as molecular genetics to improve our understanding of the basic biology of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and the impact of this biology on virulence. She has recently been awarded an MRC New Investigator grant for this work.
Mark Skidmore has built up a range of industrial and academic links for his research, following degrees at Imperial College London and Liverpool University. His research interest is carbohydrate chemistry/biochemistry, in particular the role of anionic carbohydrates. The major focus of his current research is the study of carbohydrate:protein structure-functions, in particular the development of new tools and technologies for elucidating protein-carbohydrate interactions and their application to biomedical sciences, biological sciences and medicine. The new equipment will help him to separate and analyse biologically-important carbohydrates.
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