News
All of our Student News of our students' highlights and successes are below, including awards, prizes, and publications. If you are a current student and have something you are proud of and are happy for us to share, please contact us at or fill in this form.
Harun Rashid - Vegetable Research Trust (VRT) fund
Harun Rashid of the first MIBTP cohort has been awarded a for 2014 / 15 to participate in the International Symposium on Edible Alliaceae in Turkey, 2015.
MIBTP success at Student Symposium
MIBTP students won three out of the five best poster awards at this year's 91影视破解版, School of Life Sciences Student Symposium.
Michael Baker, Harun Rashid and Mussa Quareshy, all from the 2012 cohort each received £25 in prizes.
Harud Rashid - first author on published paper
2012 cohort student Harun Rashid was recenly named first author in a published article based on his MSc work entitled "" The paper was published in the International Journal for Radiation Physics.
Ikhlaas Kasli - Clever Microbes
On the 20th February, five members of the School of Chemical Engineering (Ikhlaas Kasli (MIBTP 2013 cohort), Alfred Fernández-Castané, Nurul Asma Hasliza Zulkifly, Charles Moore-Kelly and Stephan Joseph) undertook a day of public engagement at the Thinktank Science Museum in Birmingham.
The exhibition, called ‘Clever Microbes’, sought to understand the public perception of the role microbes play in everyday life. It also generated awareness about how important these microbes are in society, from being used in our food to the production of therapeutics.

Members of the public got involved in experiments growing bakers yeast and capturing the evolved carbon dioxide as the yeast grew and respired, the same process which occurs in bread making. This was then related to the work researched in Chemical Engineering (and also taking place in industry), where these principles are being applied to produce medicines.

The public also saw how these medicines are purified, by running an experiment using thin layer chromatography. They separated out the different coloured dyes from M&Ms using chromatography paper and water.
Finally, there was a microscope, which allowed visitors to see microbes and understand how small they really are.

The exhibit appeared to be enjoyed by the volunteers and museum-visitors alike, with both sets of people engaging in discussion and learning from the interaction.
Elise Facer-Childs - published paper
2013 cohort student, Elise Facer-Childs, has recently had a paper published on
The paper, entitled has attrached much interest globally. It has been written about in hundreds of articles across the world (including The New York Times, New Scientist, AAAS Eurekalert, The Times, The Telegraph and the NHS website to name a few) and Elise and her co-author Roland Brandstaetter have been invited on to live radio in America, Germany, Singapore, Ireland and here in the UK to discuss the paper.
Elise also spoke about her findings on BBC breakfast; the video for which can be viewed on the .
Lauren Jones - Primerdesign
Lauren Jones, a member of the 2013 cohort, has been awarded a gold sponsorship from Primerdesign.
Every year Primerdesign sponsors a number of postgraduate students across the UK to help with their research by actively promoting good science and providing some free, and some discounted, high quality Real-Time PCR reagents. Projects are assessed and a number of sponsorships awarded on merit.
As one of this year's winners, Lauren has been awarded a Gold level of sponsorship which includes over £3000 worth of reagents and products, as well as additional discounts and hands on technical assistance and training from our experts.
Further information can be found on the .
Michael Baker - American Journal of Physiology
Michael Baker, from the 1st MIBTP cohort, was recently published as co-author in the American Journal of Physiology with the paper -. The paper is as a result of his first mini-project, during his training year on the programme.
Mussa Quareshy - European Bioinformatics Institute
Mussa Quaresy recently took part in a at the European Bioinformatics Institute at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton. Participants for the course are selected based on an application rather than first come first serve basis. Mussa said that the course was very interesting and well organised, with training from the people that actually curate the databases and who are experts in their fields. Mussa also presented his work on drug design for novel auxins.
Ikhlaas Kasli - 11th Annual bioProcessUK Conference
Ikhlaas Kasli, first year MIBTP PhD student was awarded a grant to attend the in Liverpool, on the 25-26th November.
Zoe Lonsdale to visit the Nara Women's University in Japan
Zoe Lonsdale, MIBTP 1st year PhD student has been selected to visit the at Nara Women's University (Japan) in Spring 2015 as part of a Leicester–Nara Exchange Agreement. She will work with Professor Shin-ichi Iwaguchi and his group, exploring epigenetically controlled phenotypic plasticity. Her visit will also include giving a research seminar, visiting the research laboratories, and meeting with staff and students to discuss the research at Nara and Leicester to hopefully lay the groundwork for collaborations.
Andrew Gilbert - recent publications
MIBTP second year PhD student Andrew Gilbert has had a first author publication in the Cold Spring Harbour Perspectives in Medicine monthly online publication.
He has also gained a co-author publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
MIBTP2
The Universities of Warwick, Birmingham and Leicester were recently awarded . A second phase of our Doctoral Training Programme that will train 52 PhD students a year for 5 years (half funded by BBSRC and half by the Universities). We are now the third largest BBSRC DTP in the country and will continue our emphasis on quantitative biology and new ways of working. Recruitment will start soon for entry in Oct 2015.
Andrew Tock - PlantWise
MIBTP student Andrew Tock made a about his PIPS placement in Uganda - highlighted by BBSRC and the Global Food Security programme.
Liam Redgrave - Trends in Microbiology
Second year MIBTP student Liam Redgrave has a in Trends in Microbiology on fluoroquinoline resistance.