During most of the year, Calum pioneered an experiments with Live bacteria cells and had to set-up COSHH forms, Risk Assessments and other Health and Safety documents to be able to work with Live methicillin Resistant strains in the Neutron Beam at the ISIS Neutron and Muon source, Harwell campus.

He also lead the experimental set-up. Tests were done in Sheffield and replicated in the bioLab in Harwell prior to the BeamTime.

Many long days and a lot of preparation and effort went into performing these experiments. Find out more about the project here: doi: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2520475 

It has been challenging but rewarding working with a non-ionising energy source like Neutrons. Especially in the LARMOR detector, where the SANS and SESANS techniques are able to produce information about the bacteria cell wall in a very concentrated solution. Calum then also complemented these data with single cell characterisation through microscopy both on site and back in Sheffield. 

The SESANS detector is the only one in the UK, when the set-up is fully funcitonal, the equipment, magnets and sample holders are all bigger than a standard room. 

In less than 12 months of starting his PhD, Nishan won the Best poster price in the prestigious International Conference of microscopy (mmc 2025) in Manchester.

His poster was titled: "Atomic Force Microscopy Reveals the Molecular Architecture of the Streptococcus pneumoniae Cell Wall during Division".

The whole team is very proud of Nish! Yey Pasquina Lab!