PhD Proposal Exam- Alexander Duggan

“A Modular Hybrid Receptor for Use in Gram-Positive Bacteria”

 Abstract

Biosensing is an often bespoke field of biotechnology, only a handful of ‘model’ sensors are used in most applications and novel ligand sensing requires time-intensive screening and optimisation with no guarantee of success. Whilst model sensors are useful to demonstrate biological systems in vivo, in vitro the ligands necessary for operation are absent limiting most systems to ‘proof-of-concept’ rather than application. This project aims to expand the repertoire via a modular easily modifiable hybridised sensor platform allowing sensors to be easily converted from one ligand to another. To this end the project set out aims to use these sensors in the human gut, potentially sensing markers for inflammation or bacterial overgrowth, both of which can signal disease states within the gut.

Supervisor: Prof. David McMillan