91传媒

My research interests include the mathematics and applications of nonlinear dynamical systems, especially synchronization problems, bifurcations, computational modelling, spatially extended systems and nonautonomous systems. The applications to living systems I am interested in include biophysical modelling (active transport and organelle dynamics in cell biology), cognition (perceptual rivalry, computational aspects of networks), molecular networks, functional dynamics in neural and biomedical systems and tipping points in nonautonomous systems.

Tobias Bergmiller’s research focuses on elucidating the behaviour of individual bacterial cells towards environmental perturbations and stress. In particular, he is interested in deciphering bacterial responses towards antibiotics that are enabled by phenotypic heterogeneity in otherwise clonal populations. At the core of his interest are multi-drug efflux pumps and gene expression programmes that mediate bacterial survival and adaptation to antibiotic exposure. His experimental approaches combine bacterial genetics, microfluidics and long-term imaging.

My research focuses on how the interactions of filamentous fungal pathogens with their physical environment results in invasive growth behaviour. The ability to control the direction of filamentous growth in order to penetrate relevant substrates is fundamental across most environmental fungi but, in the context of human disease, the ensuing tissue damage leads to hyper-inflammation, organ failure and mortality. My group uses a number of biophysical approaches to elicit growth responses from fungal hyphae at the molecular and whole-cell levels and has developed the only single-cell real-time calcium reporter available in Candida albicans. Imaging of cell responses in micro-fabricated chambers enables us to track changes in the spatial distribution of protein complexes and characterise changes in calcium flux.  We can then correlate these with fungal growth, morphology and behaviour in response to various external stimuli or stress.

My current work with LSI staff and Affiliates includes:
• PhD supervision: modelling calcium homeostasis and organelle migration in Candida albicans.
• Supporting Microfluidics and biophysics capacity with Stefano Pagliara, Tobias Bergmiller and Remi Chait.

Peter Challenor is a Professor in the Mathematics Department where he leads the Statistics and Data Science group. His interests include decision making with complex numerical models and uncertainty quantification for such models. Increasingly numerical models are being developed to explain and predict the behaviour of living systems. Such models may be derived from physical and biological principles and expressed as the solutions of sets of differential equations or they may derive from data via statistical and machine learning methods. In either case, if we are to use such models for real world decision making we need to know the quality of such models. One way to measure such quality is to estimate the uncertainty involved in the modelling and via comparison with real world data.

• Modelling the morphogenesis of the Drosophila wing disc with Dr Stefan Harmansa

My research investigates the application of advanced photonics techniques to medical imaging. Specifically I am interested in the development of new microscopy tools that can improve the specificity and spatiotemporal resolution of biomedical image data. Current projects include the rapid acquisition of three-dimensional data sets of excitable tissues and the development of coherent optical methods for dye-free optical imaging. I am also interested in the development of quantitative methods in biomedical imaging, including the development of  to place specific bounds on the accuracy of image data.

Biography
I obtained MSci (Physics) and PhD (optical engineering) degrees from the University of Cambridge, UK in 2003 and 2008 respectively. After working for a research-intensive Cambridge start-up for four years, I began postdoctoral research in fast scanning optical microscopy in the group of , University of Oxford in 2010. To broaden my experience I worked on a series of imaging-based projects as a Senior Engineer at Canon Research in Sydney, Australia. I returned to Oxford in 2014 to construct a remote focusing multiphoton microscope in the Department of Physiology in collaboration with ,  and . I began a lectureship in the  group in January 2016, becoming a Senior Lecturer in April 2020.

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My group utilizes mathematical and experimental approaches to understand competition, cooperation and coevolution amongst microorganisms. We are a truly interdisciplinary team where mathematicians, physicists, bioinformaticians, molecular biologists and experimental evolutionary ecologists work alongside each other and share skills. By developing approaches that bring together systems biology into a population level framework we strive to quantify how microbial community composition is determined by the metabolism, genetics and physiology of individual players. This is important for solving fundamental problems in evolutionary biology including the evolution of diversity, virulence and antimicrobial resistance.

Marine algae are evolutionarily and metabolically diverse organisms that underpin ocean productivity as major primary producers. Despite their global environmental importance, fundamental aspects of algal biology, physiology, and genetics remain poorly understood. A central focus of my research is to uncover the molecular mechanisms that govern how algae interact with their environment and with other planktonic microbes, how these interactions evolve, and the metabolic processes that underpin them.

My group combines molecular and cell biology approaches, including CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, proteomics, live-cell imaging, and algal physiology, to dissect the mechanisms controlling nutrient acquisition, metabolic interactions, and cell signalling in marine phytoplankton. We also develop and apply environmental sampling approaches to study natural phytoplankton populations, linking laboratory study to the ecological and environmental factors that shape microbial communities in the ocean.

Our overarching aim is to advance understanding of how globally important algae sense and respond to key environmental stressors in a changing marine environment. As an affiliate investigator of the Living Systems Institute, I am excited to develop new interdisciplinary collaborations that bring together complementary expertise to address fundamental questions in marine microbiology research.

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Jonathan Mill is Professor of Epigenomics in the 91传媒 Medical School. His group is interested in understanding the ‘causes’ and ‘consequences’ of molecular variation in the brain. They take an integrated genomics approach to study both neurodevelopmental (e.g. autism and schizophrenia) and neurodegenerative (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease and ALS) disease phenotypes. They use cutting-edge methods to explore cell-type-specific patterns of gene regulation in the human brain, with a particular focus on epigenomics, alternative splicing, and the genetic control of gene expression.

More information on their work can be found at 

Francesca Palombo is a Professor of Biomedical Spectroscopy at the School of Physics and Astronomy. Dr Palombo is a pioneer in optical elastography to study biomechanics on a subcellular scale. She was a postdoctoral research associate at Imperial College London and UEA before joining 91传媒 as a lecturer in 2013. She has a strong vibrational spectroscopy background which spans frequency-domain and time-resolved laser spectroscopy, imaging and microscopy techniques. Her core biomedical studies focus on disease detection, especially cancer and dementia, along with fundamental biochemistry and biophysics

My research interests are in the area of membrane biophysics, focusing on the importance of the membrane physical properties in controlling and directing biological function in health and disease. I have more than 20 years’ experience in red cell research and model and artificial lipid membranes, including Langmuir lipid monolayers and synthetic lipid bilayers (vesicles), investigating their thermodynamics, viscoelasticity, microdomain mesoscopic structure, electrostatic potentials and morphology. Recent work from my laboratory includes studies of the effects of oxidative stress on membrane mechanical and electrical properties, and biochemical signalling originating from the red blood cell, the effects of membrane physical properties on the interactions between the plasma membrane and bacterial (pore-forming) toxins and immunotoxins, protein-lipid interactions in model systems, fatty acid transmembrane transport in mammalian cells, and the use of synchrotron-based methods to resolve the molecular organisation of model membranes. I have also worked in low Reynolds number hydrodynamics, statics and dynamics of wetting and self-propelling artificial swimmers.

Tom is interested in using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to understand the cellular consequences of disease-associated genetic risk. He is mainly interested in the effect of genetic variation associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and uses complex in vitro models of microglia and organoids to further understand the effects on cellular activation states. He uses a multidisciplinary approach to identify novel targets and pathways that can be therapeutically targeted using strategies that can provide rapid translation of findings to the clinic.

I am a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Biological and Clinical Science.

My research combines experiments, computation, and mathematics to understand the production of rhythmic activity in biological systems. Oscillations enable coordinated activity within biological systems, and disruptions in these oscillations can cause disease.

At the cellular level, I study the rhythmic electrical activity produced by neurones, cardiac myocytes, and endocrine pituitary cells.
At the network level, I study the oscillators that produce motor activity in the tadpole, and the dynamic coordination between these oscillators that results in swimming behaviour.

Collaborations with LSI staff:
— NetClamp: conducting neural network rhythms with mathematics (with Kyle Wedgwood).

I am interested in the processes that shape biological diversity at the organismal and genetic levels. My present focus is on the consequences of relaxed natural selection—on the evolutionary fate of adaptations that are no longer critical to survival and reproduction.  When environmental conditions change, mutations that alter previously adaptive traits can accumulate, and novel selection pressures that act to reshape these traits can emerge.  The study of relaxed selection provides an important complement to adaptation-focussed research in the context of environmental change.

I am a NERC funded Independent Research Fellow (Professor), working on the evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions. My lab studies how ecological variables drive the evolution of various immune strategies in bacteria, with an emphasis on CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems, and examines their coevolutionary consequences. Bacteria encode lots of different immune mechanisms, and their molecular basis has been studied in great detail, which makes them an ideal model system to study more generally how ecology drives the evolution of different defenses. These bacterial defense mechanisms include CRISPR-Cas, which I studied at the molecular level during the start of my scientific career, surface modification, restriction modification, abortive infection and prokaryotic Argonaute.

My primary research interest lies in understanding the developmental phenomenon of metamorphosis in marine animals. Many marine animals, including sponges, corals, jellyfish, shellfish, crustaceans, worms, sea urchins, starfish and sea squirts, have a life cycle which includes a free-swimming larval stage that must find the ideal location to settle down on the seafloor and undergo metamorphosis to an adult form. I use molecular biology approaches to study the sensory and neuroendocrine systems of marine invertebrate larvae to understand how they interact with their surrounding environment to navigate through the ocean and regulate the timing of their metamorphic transition. These larvae are crucial to the survival, connectivity and evolution of marine populations.

My background lies in marine biology and molecular biology. Following a BSc in Marine Biology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, I carried out a BSc Hons research project investigating natural variation in gene expression during sea squirt larval development. During my PhD, I studied the interplay of genes and environment in the metamorphosis of tropical abalone, an emerging aquaculture species. I then joined the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, as a postdoctoral researcher working on neuropeptide signalling in the life cycle of marine worms, sea anemones, jellyfish and placozoans. Following a move to the 91传媒’s new Living Systems Institute with my postdoctoral research lab in 2018, I was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in late 2019. Commencing May 2020, this fellowship allows me to build my independent research group in the 91传媒 Biosciences.