Profile

I have lived at York for the past 5 years with my girlfriend, whom I met whilst at university, though I am originally from Chipping Campden in the lovely Cotswolds. I am a big fan of keeping active whether that be by hitting the gym, going for hikes or having a swim in the local pool.

A cool fact about me is that I spent 3 months of my life walking across New Zealand where I managed to conquer Mt.DOOM! See attached photo!

My interests in science are very broad and am happy to have a conversation about all most anything. However, my specialties definitely lie with plants and how they respond to stress. Hopefully I can open your eyes to how incredible plants are!

Glossary:

TNT

My work is interested in how plants metabolise the environmental pollutant 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT, the explosive!!). TNT is a toxic and carcinogenic (cancer-causing) compound thus is not something we want lying around in our soils. Therefore identifying ways of removing it, and other such toxic pollutants, from the soil in the most environmentally friendly way is of real importance.

Plants offer a uniquely well suited method for removing toxic compounds from the soil due to being cheap (lots of seeds generated from one plant), low input (as long as they have soil, water and light they are happy!) and most importantly environmentally friendly (eliminates the need for soil removal which is incredibly destructive). However, for plants to be an effective method we as scientists need to fully understand the chemical reactions that the pollutant molecule undergoes once it has been taken up by the plants roots, otherwise known as its metabolism.

Professor Neil Bruces group at the University of York, of which I am fortunate enough to be apart of, have been undertaking this research for nearly 20 years. They have identified how TNT causes toxicity within plants and have generated mutant plants that are immune to these toxic effects (see picture 1). They have also identified several enzymes that are involved in the plant cells defence against the toxic TNT molecule.

My research focuses specifically on one route of detoxification called S-Glutathionylation. The Bruce Group have identified two enzymes within a plant species called Arabidopsis thaliana that perform this detoxification process on TNT. Plants containing greater amounts of these enzymes were shown to cope with higher levels of TNT than normal plants (see picture 2). The aim of my research is to identify what happens to the TNT molecule after it has been detoxified such as where is it sent within the plant cell and what happens to it next. A method I am using to answer these questions uses a very small needle take up the cell substance from single plant cells!!(see picture 3)