Student profiles
At Nottingham, we research to bring about positive change. Our innovative ideas and discoveries are designed to work in the real world. The School of Life Sciences provides the main focus for biological and biomedical research at the University.
The research that our students do can directly contribute to the impact of the school’s research. We think this is a really exciting opportunity for our students to consolidate their learning and showcase the skills they have developed. Many students have their work published, which is a great achievement.
Below, third year students share their experiences.
Georgina Bray, MSci Zoology
I felt very lucky to be involved in my project. The title was “The long term change of the impact of human disturbance on the breeding success of the European nightjar”. I worked with Dr Kate Durrant and her team. We spent a month surveying trails in known nightjar habitats in Sherwood Forest to gather data on human disturbance, accompanied by mist netting and nest monitoring to survey the nightjar population during breeding season. Being able to carry out real science that will hopefully help in the conservation of the nightjar population in the future has been so fulfilling.
George Harrison-Church, BSc Biology
My project was called “Functional analysis of the N-terminus of DEF6”. DEF6 is a protein which is suggested to be involved in the formation of the immune synapse within cells. My project involved synthesising various mutated forms of the protein to see how, if at all, this altered the protein function. To do this, I was able to learn a lot of new skills including PCR mutagenesis and fluorescent imaging, neither of which I’d done before. It was incredibly interesting joining an active research group. I was working with Professor Fred Sablitzky’s team who will continue to use our results for their research in the future.