Affiliate Investigators

My research interests include the mathematics and applications of nonlinear dynamical systems, especially synchronization problems, bifurcations, computational modelling, spatially extended systems and nonautonomous systems. The applications to living systems I am interested in include biophysical modelling (active transport and organelle dynamics in cell biology), cognition (perceptual rivalry, computational aspects of networks), molecular networks, functional dynamics in neural and biomedical systems and tipping points in nonautonomous systems.

Read more

Tobias Bergmiller’s research focuses on elucidating the behaviour of individual bacterial cells towards environmental perturbations and stress. In particular, he is interested in deciphering bacterial responses towards antibiotics that are enabled by phenotypic heterogeneity in otherwise clonal populations. At the core of his interest are multi-drug efflux pumps and gene expression programmes that mediate bacterial survival and adaptation to antibiotic exposure. His experimental approaches combine bacterial genetics, microfluidics and long-term imaging.

Read more

My research focuses on how the interactions of filamentous fungal pathogens with their physical environment results in invasive growth behaviour. The ability to control the direction of filamentous growth in order to penetrate relevant substrates is fundamental across most environmental fungi but, in the context of human disease, the ensuing tissue damage leads to hyper-inflammation, organ failure and mortality. My group uses a number of biophysical approaches to elicit growth responses from fungal hyphae at the molecular and whole-cell levels. Live-cell imaging within micro-fabricated chambers enable us to track changes in the spatial distribution of protein complexes and correlate this with fungal morphology and behaviour in response to tip-contact, electric fields and the mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix.

My current work with LSI staff and Affiliates includes:
• Development of image analysis tools with David Richards
• Inference of spatial regulatory mechanisms through analysis of protein complex dynamics with Wolfram Moebius
• Building Microfluidics capacity with Stefano Pagliara, Tobias Bergmiller, Remi Chait and Jehangir Cama.

Read more

Peter Challenor is a Professor in the Mathematics Department where he leads the Statistics and Data Science group. His interests include decision making with complex numerical models and uncertainty quantification for such models. Increasingly numerical models are being developed to explain and predict the behaviour of living systems. Such models may be derived from physical and biological principles and expressed as the solutions of sets of differential equations or they may derive from data via statistical and machine learning methods. In either case, if we are to use such models for real world decision making we need to know the quality of such models. One way to measure such quality is to estimate the uncertainty involved in the modelling and via comparison with real world data.

Read more

My research investigates the application of advanced photonics techniques to medical imaging. Specifically I am interested in the development of new microscopy tools that can improve the specificity and spatiotemporal resolution of biomedical image data. Current projects include the rapid acquisition of three-dimensional data sets of excitable tissues and the development of coherent optical methods for dye-free optical imaging. I am also interested in the development of quantitative methods in biomedical imaging, including the development of new calibration standards to place specific bounds on the accuracy of image data.

Biography
I obtained MSci (Physics) and PhD (optical engineering) degrees from the University of Cambridge, UK in 2003 and 2008 respectively. After working for a research-intensive Cambridge start-up for four years, I began postdoctoral research in fast scanning optical microscopy in the group of Prof Tony Wilson, University of Oxford in 2010. To broaden my experience I worked on a series of imaging-based projects as a Senior Engineer at Canon Research in Sydney, Australia. I returned to Oxford in 2014 to construct a remote focusing multiphoton microscope in the Department of Physiology in collaboration with Prof Gil Bub, Prof Ed Mann and Dr Rebecca Burton. I began a lectureship in the Biomedical Physics group in January 2016, becoming a Senior Lecturer in April 2020.

Read more.

My research

My group works on the pathogenic interactions between fungal pathogens and the human host. Our main interest is understanding the structure and function of the fungal cell wall as the natural interface between the pathogen and its host. We are investigating the ligands of the wall that are important for immune recognition and the cell wall biosynthetic processes that can be used as targets the development of antifungal drugs and antifungal vaccines. My group is supported by a Wellcome Senior Investigator Award, two Wellcome Collaborative Awards and a number of joint awards with colleagues in the MRC-CMM and LSI.

Relationships with staff in the LSI:

• I am a co-applicant on a project called the Molecular Mechanic Initiative (MMI) supported by EPSRC Physics for Life grant led by Professor Frank Vollmer and team of co-investigators. This is using nanoparticle technologies and single molecule sensors to investigate fungal cell wall binding proteins.
• I am a co-applicant on BBSRC equipment grant award led by Professor Gaspar Jekely that funds cryo-fixation/ freeze-substitution equipment underpinning high resolution electron microscopy and tomography.
• I am working with Dr Caitlin Chimerel investigating the pharmacodynamics of AmBisome (and antifungal drug that is delivered in a liposomal formulation), using cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy that has th potential to make single cell measurements of drug translocation.
• I am beginning to investigate how novel microfluidic methodologies can be applied to study fungus-drug interactions with a new team of LSI researchers.

Read more

I am an UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, a Turing Fellow, and an Associate Professor in Computer Science. My group’s research has contributed to the fundamental development of computational/artificial intelligence for black-box optimisation and decision-making (especially with multiple conflicting objectives). More recently, we have focused on building large-scale foundation models to analyse massive datasets in the chemical languages of life. Meanwhile, my group has been actively working on building agentic AI system as virtual scientist team that work side-by-side with domain experts to accelerate scientific discovery and beyond. In collaboration with several principal investigators at LSI, we are developing these models to detect antimicrobial resistance and to uncover the principles governing RNA structure and its function in the human cell nucleus.

Read more

Jonathan Mill is Professor of Epigenomics in the University of Exeter Medical School. His group is interested in understanding the ‘causes’ and ‘consequences’ of molecular variation in the brain. They take an integrated genomics approach to study both neurodevelopmental (e.g. autism and schizophrenia) and neurodegenerative (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease and ALS) disease phenotypes. They use cutting-edge methods to explore cell-type-specific patterns of gene regulation in the human brain, with a particular focus on epigenomics, alternative splicing, and the genetic control of gene expression.

More information on their work can be found at www.epigenomicslab.com.

My research involves the development and application of nonlinear optical techniques to address biomedical challenges. In particular, my work focuses on Coherent Raman Scattering (CRS), a technique that exploits the intrinsic nonlinear optical response of biomolecules to derive label-free biochemical contrast of living systems.

I am currently collaborating with Stefano Pagliara and Fabrice Gielen, but I am keen to explore further collaborations with other staff in the LSI who would benefit from the advanced optical imaging techniques in my laboratories.

Read more

My research interests are in the area of membrane biophysics, focusing on the importance of the membrane physical properties in controlling and directing biological function in health and disease. I have more than 20 years’ experience in red cell research and model and artificial lipid membranes, including Langmuir lipid monolayers and synthetic lipid bilayers (vesicles), investigating their thermodynamics, viscoelasticity, microdomain mesoscopic structure, electrostatic potentials and morphology. Recent work from my laboratory includes studies of the effects of oxidative stress on membrane mechanical and electrical properties, and biochemical signalling originating from the red blood cell, the effects of membrane physical properties on the interactions between the plasma membrane and bacterial (pore-forming) toxins and immunotoxins, protein-lipid interactions in model systems, fatty acid transmembrane transport in mammalian cells, and the use of synchrotron-based methods to resolve the molecular organisation of model membranes. I have also worked in low Reynolds number hydrodynamics, statics and dynamics of wetting and self-propelling artificial swimmers.

Read more

Tom is interested in using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to understand the cellular consequences of disease-associated genetic risk. He is mainly interested in the effect of genetic variation associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and uses complex in vitro models of microglia and organoids to further understand the effects on cellular activation states. He uses a multidisciplinary approach to identify novel targets and pathways that can be therapeutically targeted using strategies that can provide rapid translation of findings to the clinic.

Read more

I'm a lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics. My research interests are in developing data science tools and dynamical system models to better understand complex biological systems (systems with many interdependent components). I'm also interested in translating quantitative methods into healthcare technologies (see e.g. youtu.be/xeuJp5Y-4Co). I like to make things that work.

Read more

I am a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Biological and Clinical Science.

My research combines experiments, computation, and mathematics to understand the production of rhythmic activity in biological systems. Oscillations enable coordinated activity within biological systems, and disruptions in these oscillations can cause disease.

At the cellular level, I study the rhythmic electrical activity produced by neurones, cardiac myocytes, and endocrine pituitary cells.
At the network level, I study the oscillators that produce motor activity in the tadpole, and the dynamic coordination between these oscillators that results in swimming behaviour.

Collaborations with LSI staff:
— NetClamp: conducting neural network rhythms with mathematics (with Kyle Wedgwood).

Read more

My research interests lie at the interface of mathematics, statistics, and the life sciences. I investigate how complex living systems—ranging from microbial populations to neuroendocrine systems—process information, adapt, and make decisions in noisy and fluctuating environments. A central focus of my work is understanding how information is encoded and transmitted along the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis, elucidating the neuronal mechanisms that enable pulsatile hormone secretion and their adaptation to stress signals. At a methodological level, I am also interested in Bayesian statistics and the development of robust analytical frameworks for data-driven biological research, with a particular emphasis on uncertainty quantification and model-based inference.

Read more

I am a NERC funded Independent Research Fellow (Professor), working on the evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions. My lab studies how ecological variables drive the evolution of various immune strategies in bacteria, with an emphasis on CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems, and examines their coevolutionary consequences. Bacteria encode lots of different immune mechanisms, and their molecular basis has been studied in great detail, which makes them an ideal model system to study more generally how ecology drives the evolution of different defenses. These bacterial defense mechanisms include CRISPR-Cas, which I studied at the molecular level during the start of my scientific career, surface modification, restriction modification, abortive infection and prokaryotic Argonaute.

Read more

My primary research interest lies in understanding the developmental phenomenon of metamorphosis in marine animals. Many marine animals, including sponges, corals, jellyfish, shellfish, crustaceans, worms, sea urchins, starfish and sea squirts, have a life cycle which includes a free-swimming larval stage that must find the ideal location to settle down on the seafloor and undergo metamorphosis to an adult form. I use molecular biology approaches to study the sensory and neuroendocrine systems of marine invertebrate larvae to understand how they interact with their surrounding environment to navigate through the ocean and regulate the timing of their metamorphic transition. These larvae are crucial to the survival, connectivity and evolution of marine populations.

My background lies in marine biology and molecular biology. Following a BSc in Marine Biology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, I carried out a BSc Hons research project investigating natural variation in gene expression during sea squirt larval development. During my PhD, I studied the interplay of genes and environment in the metamorphosis of tropical abalone, an emerging aquaculture species. I then joined the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, as a postdoctoral researcher working on neuropeptide signalling in the life cycle of marine worms, sea anemones, jellyfish and placozoans. Following a move to the University of Exeter’s new Living Systems Institute with my postdoctoral research lab in 2018, I was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in late 2019. Commencing May 2020, this fellowship allows me to build my independent research group in the Exeter Biosciences.