Gavin Melaugh, Group Leader

I’m a Chancellor’s fellow joint between the School of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Engineering. In my group, we use a combination of experiments, microscopy, and computer simulations to understand the collective behaviour of microorganisms in the natural environment, and in biotechnological and clinical settings .  I’ve been a member in the core team of the National Biofilms Innovation Centre since it’s formation in 2018.  In Physics, I’m course organiser for Research Methods in Physics (3rd year course) and I also teach Biological Physics (4th and 5th year).  Before joining the University of Edinburgh, I did a computational physics PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, where our team designed and synthesised the world’s first ever porous liquids.

Hannah Johns, PhD student

I’m a PhD student on the Wellcome Integrative Cellular Mechanisms PhD programme. Split between Gavin Melaugh and Lynne Regan’s lab, I work on designing and controlling multicellular assemblies of E.coli through synthetic adhesion constructs on their surface. Alongside this, I use computational modelling to aid in the prediction and understanding of their morphology. Before coming to Edinburgh, I completed my undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and then worked at the University of York as a research trainee in Professor Jeremy Mottram’s group.

Holly Bridge, PhD Student

I’m a PhD student working on developing individual-based models for filamentous bacteria found in wastewater treatment. In particular, I’m investigating how the growth and division of different filamentous morphologies influence the physics of floc formation and attempting to understand the emergence of interfloc bridging and how it adversely impacts phase separation and settleability.

 

Joseph Knight, PhD student
I first became hooked on the role physics can play in elucidating behaviours of biological systems during my final two years of physics undergraduate study in Cambridge. As a member of the Fusco group, I worked with bacterial biofilms, investigating wrinkling behaviour and optical properties.
Now, starting my PhD here in Edinburgh, I am excited to be investigating a new organism; Labyrinthula zosterae. Part of the protist group, Labyrinthula is perhaps most famous as the suggested causative agent of seagrass wasting disease. From a research perspective, I am particularly fascinated by the observed network behaviour of growing Labyrinthula colonies. Through the secretion of an ectoplasmic net, embedded cells are able to move along a growing network of ‘trackways’. Employing a range of microscopy and image processing techniques, I hope to further explore this behaviour across a range of length scales, from the microscopic mechanics of cellular locomotion to the collective network logic and resource allocation of macroscopic colonies.
Anne-Maelle Penot, PhD student
I’m an experimental biological physicist with a keen interest in environmental questions. My PhD project looks at the microbial generation of nitrous oxide in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas with global warming potential 310 times that of carbon dioxide and wastewater treatment is responsible of 3% of anthropogenic emissions through the microbial removal of ammonium in the wastewater. WWTPs are complex systems and to address this, I do experiments at different scale to study the impact of various parameters (pH, O2 and substrate concentrations) on the nitrous oxide emissions. The lab-work is complemented by simulations to gain a better understanding of process parameters’ impact on N2O emissions.
Francois De Tournemire, PhD Student

I study the influence of extra-cellular DNA on bacterial motility, with a special interest in the early stages of biofilm formation. I use experiments involving lambda DNA and Differential Dynamic Microscopy, but also a computational framework called Multi-Particle Collision Dynamics