Profile

I am originally from Wirral (near Liverpool). I moved to Keele (near Alton Towers) to complete my Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology and Forensic Science. I moved back to Wirral to complete my Masters in Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I am currently living in Norwich and I am trying to complete a PhD.

I have 2 rats: Albus (After Dumbledore) and Darwin (After Charles Darwin).

I am a bit obsessed with Harry Potter (see rat name), musicals and Doctor Who.

Whiteflies are a dangerous insect to farming. They are like the mosquito of the plant world. Whiteflies can live on a large range of crops, they also transmit a lot of nasty viruses and damage the crop itself. Luckily whiteflies are not in the UK, although they will be eventually as they are in surrounding countries.

My job is to come up with methods to destroy the flies. My plan is to modify their genes, making them incapable of producing female offspring. The male offspring will survive and pass on this female killer gene to their offspring. This method will crash the population.

Normally I get to my office desk and look/ answer emails.

Each day is normally different. I  can be working on the computer doing some analyse/ bioinfomatics on results I have got. I could be working in the lab creating plants which have knocked out genes. Or I could be in the insectary counting/ killing my whiteflies.