In March 2026, I was fortunate to receive flexible funding to undertake a two-week research placement in the laboratory of Professor James Segars at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. This placement provided a valuable opportunity to expand my technical skillset, strengthen international collaborations, and advance my PhD research focused on uterine fibroids. My research centres on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning uterine fibroids, with a par

Thanks to the flexible funding I was able to undertake a 3-week research training placement in the laboratory of Prof. Neva Caliskan at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infections Research in Würzburg, Germany. The aim of this research placement was to gain specialist technical skills in optical tweezer experimental design, data acquisition and analysis. Briefly, optical tweezer experiments allow us to study the unfolding and refolding forces of single molecules by stret

The main objective of my PhD is to identify novel diagnostic biomarkers and potential treatment strategies for neonates with necrotising enterocolitis, a life-threatening inflammatory bowel disease primarily affecting preterm babies. To achieve this, I have applied a multi-omics approach, encompassing metagenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), key by-products of microbial metabolism, are of particular interest as they are produced by bacteria

As I neared the final submission of my PhD thesis into the neuroscience of tactile processing, I found myself thinking about different perspectives on my research. While I had investigated both the input to, and output from, the tactile system during my PhD, there was a step missing: what is happening to the skin, that leads to the activation of tactile receptors? This led me to apply for a Flexible Supplement in the form of a Transition Award, to investigate how the skin is

The DiMeN Transition Award provided me with an additional three months to gather data for my primary first-author publication. I spent one month in Sheffield completing preliminary experiments, followed by a month at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) where I had the opportunity to collaborate with Professor Vinai Thomas. I returned to Sheffield for the final month to process the data and begin drafting the manuscript with my supervisor. The visit to UNMC was

I completed a 3-month internship at the Senedd in Cardiff, Wales. Welsh Government is the devolved government for Wales, and it works on devolved areas such as health, education and the environment. I worked as a research assistant at Senedd Research, in the Health and Social Care team. The team works on all aspects of health and social care in Wales, where their research supports Welsh parliament. Working in the Senedd gave me the opportunity to watch first minister’s questi

In the second year of my PhD, I undertook a 3-month placement at Immagina Biotechnology, supported by the DiMeN flexible funding supplement. Immagina is a small company based in Trento, Italy known as the “ribosome company” which specialises in creating innovative sequencing technologies to accelerate research on translation. I worked in the Innovation and R&D team on a project aiming to identify novel tRNA-binding proteins (t-RBPs) whose interactions are governed by tRNA mod

Through the flexible funding award, I completed a three-month internship with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as part of the competitive UKRI policy internship programme. I joined the All Hazards Intelligence (AHI) Global Emerging Hazards team, which is responsible for monitoring and assessing emerging and potential global health threats. One of the most significant aspects of my internship was joining the “red team” for Exercise Pegasus, the largest pandemic simulation

With the support of DiMeN flexible funding, I undertook a 4-month research internship at the Center for Neuroplasty and Pain (CNAP), Aalborg University, Denmark. My main goal was to learn a cutting-edge technique that uses magnetic pulses and brainwave recordings to explore how the brain responds to stimulation - this is known as combined transcranial magnetic stimulation-electroencephalography, TMS-EEG. During my time at CNAP, I gained hands-on experience with every step of

Generation Research is an organisation that aims to inspire the next generation researchers by providing paid summer research placements to undergraduate students. Positions are across disciplines in a range of technical and research projects. PhD students act as supervisors to these undergraduate students. They propose, write and submit a summer research project. If this is selected they help recruit their undergraduate student and then supervise them to carry out the proj

Thanks to DiMeN flexible funding, I was able to attend the Molecular Mechanisms of Host-Pathogen Interactions and Virulence in Human Fungal Pathogens Advanced Lecture Course (HFP) in La Colle sur Loup, France, in May 2024. This is a week long lecture course which aims to disseminate the latest fungal research and provide early career researchers with a platform to interact with leaders in the field, gain feedback on their research and form new networks. The lecture course co

In the third year of my PhD I undertook a 3-month industrial placement at the Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) which was supported by DiMeN's flexible funding. I was given my own project to work on which was to investigate the binding mechanism of drugs that target the adenosine A3 receptor. To do this, I used industry level molecular modelling software to computationally predict the noncovalent interactions that the drug compounds make with the receptor. Many of these drug

Thanks to the flexible funding I’ve received from DIMEN, I was able to complete a five day online scRNA-seq analysis using R course run by EMBL-EBI in October 2022. It was an extremely informative course and I was able to gain valuable bioinformatic skills. I am excited to now apply these skills to the scRNA-seq dataset I have generated and hopefully answer some important questions about the interferon response to SARS-CoV-2 in the nasal epithelium. The course contained bot

DiMeN Flexible funding allowed me to take part in University of Nottingham’s Transcranial Magnetic Simulation (TMS) Workshop. The workshop started with seminars on TMS history, delivered by the researchers who invented TMS, and discussed the strengths of limitations of TMS. After these seminars, we were then invited to take part in practical sessions working with neuronavigation, TMS neurostimulation, motor cortex target findings, and learning how to optimize TMS to work with

The Flexible Funding Award made it possible for me to undertake a 3-month internship as a Parliamentary Policy Researcher within the Senedd/Welsh Parliament in Cardiff, as part of the prestigious UKRI Policy Internships scheme. As part of the Health and Social Policy Team, I conducted in-depth research on intricate policy matters. I produced accessible research briefs and articles, translating intricate policy details into lay summaries for Members of the Senedd. These docume