News
September 2021: Due to restructuring, we now say goodbye to the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences and begin the next part of our journey in the new School of Biosciences.
June 2020: May Appleby has completed her fourth year project in the lab, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a anticlimactic goodbye, although we did manage an online sendoff and a very international one at that, with Scottish, Portuguese, Indian and Australian participants!
March 2020: We are now working from home due to the pandemic. Some plant watering will continue but lab research has been halted.
December 2019: Dr Pedro Rocha has joined Prof. Jurriaan Ton and the Smith lab as a technician for six months to work on an internally funded knowledge exchange project.
October 2019: Dr Vanessa De Sousa Vieira has joined the lab on a Leverhulme Trust funded postdoc. She will spend the next three years studying the function of a malectin domain kinesin. Welcome! Also welcome to May Appleby and Mechna Chowdhury who have joined the lab as MBiolSci and MRes students, respectively.
July 2019: Congrats to Eloise Wells and Suhashini Sivananthan who have graduated with their MBiolSci degree.
May 2019: The lab has a Leverhulme Trust funded postdoc position available to work on kinesins. For more information, check out the ‘About the Job’ form at http://shef.ac.uk/jobs
November 2018: Massive congratulations to Dr Sergio Galindo-Trigo! After four years in the lab, he has passed his viva.
July 2018: Congrats to Ellie Vinnicombe who has graduated with her MBiolSci degree.
June 2018: Welcome to Dr Stuart Campbell who joins the lab on a Marie Sklodowsks-Curie Individual Fellowship.
September 2017: Welcome to new lab members Tom Grand (PhD student joint with Andrew Fleming) and Ellie Vinnicombe (Fourth year of her MBiolSci degree).
July 2017: Congratulations to Amy Bloxham and Jack Haslam on completing their MBiolSci degrees!
November 2016: BBSRC iCASE PhD studentship available with Prof. Andrew Fleming and myself for 2017-2021. Fully funded for a UK student/EU student who fulfils residency requirements. For more information: BBSRC iCASE studentship Fleming Smith.
October 2016: Welcome to new members of the lab: Robert Chester (MRes); Amy Bloxham (Level 4); and Jack Haslam (Level 4); and Naomi Cox (PhD student joint with Andrew Fleming).
October 2016: Last night was Researchers’ Night at uni. Jurriaan Ton and I did our best to introduce whoever wandered into the B2 teaching lab to our favourite Arabidopsis plants:
September 2016: David finished his summer studentship in the lab in August. He surprised us with this lovely memento of his time in the lab (Sergio, me and David):
David writes of his time in the lab:
I would like to express a huge amount of gratitude to Dr Lisa Smith and Sergio Galindo-Trigo for taking me on and supervising my Genetics Society summer studentship project over the past 8 weeks. The project has focussed on the role of receptor like kinases on the abscisic acid pathway in response to various abiotic stresses during seed germination and establishment. Undertaking this placement has given me the opportunity to develop existing skills in plant care, seed germination studies, DNA extraction and science communication as well as develop an array of new skills such as in bioinformatics, thermal imaging, PCR-based genotyping, RNA extraction and reverse transcription for RT-qPCR gene expression analysis. This experience has been invaluable for my personal development, has given me a great feeling for what it is like to work in a laboratory environment and has spurred me on to pursue research. I am hugely grateful for the help and guidance I have received throughout. Thank you!
August 2016: Congratulations to Sergio on the publication of his review in FIPS!
June 2016: Welcome to David Rapley, who joins the lab for eight weeks on a Genetics Society summer studentship.
January 2016: Congratulations to Niall on completing his MRes last September! He has now graduated and is happily settling into a PhD with Duncan Cameron and Rob Falconer. Sergio will have to wait a few more years for the chance to wear a silly hat…
July 2015: Welcome to David Turner, a summer student who is volunteering in the lab for the next 5 weeks to gain research experience.
And a joint picnic with the Fleming lab!
October 2014: Sergio Galindo-Trigo has joined the lab as a PhD student and Niall Bradshaw as a Masters student on the new APS MRes programme. I will also be third supervisor for Dimitar Epihov who is doing his PhD with David Beerling and Jonathan Leake. Welcome to all!
April 2014: 4 year funded PhD position currently available for Autumn 2014 to study receptor-like kinases in moss. UK and EU students only. (Sorry – position now filled.)
October 2013: The lab has officially started in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield!