
Dr. Matt Bawn Dept. of Environmental Sciences, Newcastle
Newcastle’s diverse environments, from the River Tyne to urban green spaces, provide a unique opportunity to study the microbial ecosystems around us. This project will explore the bacterial diversity in the environment and offer an exciting opportunity to gain hands-on experience in wet-lab and computational methods. The student will collect environmental samples (e.g., water, soil, biofilms) and process them for DNA extraction. They will learn techniques such as sample preparation, DNA quantification, and quality control, culminating in preparing sequencing libraries for Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). The second phase will focus on analyzing sequencing data. The student will be trained in bioinformatics workflows to process raw nanopore reads, including quality control, taxonomic classification, and functional analysis of microbial communities. They will use tools such as R or Python to interpret the microbial composition and ecological patterns in their samples. The student will gain a comprehensive understanding of environmental microbiology. The project is ideal for those eager to combine lab-based science with data-driven exploration, paving the way for future careers in genomics and microbial ecology. Students will need to find their own accommodation and be expected to present their findings orally at a research day in York in September 2025