Lisa's Lab Book

  Right at the end of April I joined Andrew MacColl and his team on North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. My second time on North Uist and it was  even better than the first since I had a bit more of an idea of the way things were done. As you see from the photos above this place looks like imagined 'Paradise'. The weather was mostly dry and field work was in full swing when I arrived. This year Megan took the Loligo systems microplate array to measure oxygen consumption in eggs developing at different temperatures. Henry rescued my wellington boots from the mud numerous times. Ben had taken a wetsuit and was able to find me a few sponges. Each day was spent setting and emptying traps followed by lab work in 'production-line' style. It was extremely enjoyable and also very productive.

  Last week we went to Bremerhaven to visit the engineers who look after, develop and modify the various instruments that are used to survey the sea floor in the Arctic and Antarctic. Mel and Ulises in particular were shown around all the various remotely operated vehicles, autonomous sensors and the ship towed OFOBS (ocean floor observation and bathymetry system) which is pictured just below. It was a great information gathering and networking couple of days. AWI engineers are keen to test prototypes in the field for us and the potential for joint projects going forward looks very promising.  Moorings are placed out in the ocean for long periods of time, here is a model of a tethered mooring with sediment trap and releasers. Our quantum sensors could eventually be deployed on these. While we were visiting, the new methane powered ship  Utthorn returned from a test out at sea.

On Monday 4 th March I gave a speech at STEM for Britain at the House of Commons. I presented the Bronze award for the Biological and Biomedical sciences as a Trustee representing The Biochemical Society, who sponsor this award. STEM for BRITAIN is a major scientific poster competition and exhibition which has been held in Parliament since 1997, and is organised by the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee. Chaired by Stephen Metcalfe MP, its aim is to give members of both Houses of Parliament an insight into the outstanding research work being undertaken in UK universities by early-career researchers.   

  From left to right: Peter Hobson, Alistair Nunn, Alister Davis, Niall Holmes, Ifigeneia  Kalampouka, Rhys Mould, Geoffrey Guy, Alasdair Mackenzie, Mark Fromhold, Lisa  Chakrabarti, Frankie Rawson and Melissa Mather On Tuesday February 6th this year Geoffrey Guy and people from his foundation came to visit us in Nottingham. the meeting had been arranged with our great collaborator in Engineering, Melissa Mather (on the right of the photo above). Geoff had met Mel at a House of Commons showcase where her poster describing our work on quantum biology and mitochondria caught his interest. Frankie Rawson (right back) talked about his work on quantum tunnelling, Mark Fromhold (next to Frankie) presented his interests in gravitational and magnetic fields. And Nial Holmes (in the centre of Einstein's blackboard!) was able to show our visitors his magnetic shielding facility. Our meeting was held in the Physics department at University Park Campus. The room contains a blackboar...

Last week we went to Tuebingen, Germany to visit Dr Julia Fitzgerald and Dr Layla Drwesh at the Hertie Institute of Brain Research. Katie Mortimer and Rachel Cruickshank were there for the whole week to generate data and collaborate on various overlapping areas of interest. We plan to continue work together in the fields of Parkinson's disease, Psychiatric illness and Alzheimer's disease.  Tuebingen is a perfect city for biochemists to visit since it was here that 'nuclein' (DNA) was first isolated by  Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher, published in 1871. Coincidentally, his research was primarily based on Haemoglobin....we visited the lab, which was in the kitchen of the castle and saw numerous artefacts from that time. Katie took some nice photos of our visit. from the left - Katie, Rachel, Layla, Me and Julia. Alois Alzheimer did some of his medical training at Tuebingen University. In the DNA lab...the window is 'frosted' with 96 well plates!  Layla visited u...

Katie's review is now published in Frontiers in Psychiatry 

Epigenetic networks and ageing in 348 mammalian species...including our bats!