Biography
I carried out my PhD at the University of East Anglia working on the decoding of calcium signals in Marchantia polymorpha. The focus of my PhD work was on subsets of decoders involved in decoding salt induced calcium signalling to characterise if evolution of the calcium decoding toolkit was key in the emergence of plants onto land, and to see if these decoders could be used to increase crop productivity in saline areas. Since the start of my PhD M. polymorpha has rapidly developed into a model organism for synthetic biology which really piqued my interest in the field.
My current project focuses on using molecular biology to explore natural products in Asteraceae and develop synthetic biology tools to increase production of these compounds in heterologous systems. The end goal of this project is to develop sustainable systems for producing pharmaceutically interesting compounds from the natural world for the betterment of human health.
