Jonathan Manning - Jon started in the group in October 2004 after a Master of Research in Bioinformatics at the University of Leeds. This followed a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry (also at Leeds), which included an industrial year in sunny Florida studying the genetics of Parkinsonism, and a computer-based dissertation project examining the role of water in protein-protein interfaces. He rapidly discovered that in contrast to lab work, with computers, any problems could for the most part reliably be traced to himself, rather than dodgy enzymes or broken pipettes. Jon decided the laboratory was an environment best left to those with more patience, and his lab coat has been consigned to the bottom drawer ever since.

When not looking goofy in photographs, Jon likes to spend time attempting to deprogram his namby-pamby southern ways by walking up and down steep bits of the Scottish landscape at weekends with the university rucksack club. He invariably regrets the decision to do so come Sunday evening, but somehow forgets it when, after a few beers, the signup sheet is proffered. Other interests include beer, wine, cooking, swimming, cycling, and too much TV.

While not entirely sure what his 'life after PhD' will be, Jon's grateful to Geoff and the BBSRC for allowing him to do interesting biological research in combination with messing around on the computer. 

Jon submitted his Thesis in January 2008 and passed his viva on 2nd May 2008. His examiners were Prof David Jones from UCL and Dr Ruth Brenk. He started work at Edinburgh University in early Feb. 2008.

Greg Machray - A native Dundonian and only Scotsman in the group, Greg joined the group after completing his first degree in Biochemistry at the University Of Dundee in summer 2003. He started his BBSRC funded Ph.D. project in October 2003 and is jointly supervised by Mike Ferguson. Although his project is generally computer-based, both supervisors are threatening to force wet lab work on him before three years is up. Contrary to popular belief, Greg has left the confines of the city of Dundee several times - although it's so nice here he doesn't really see the point. His activities between work and above boundaries are varied, in particular he enjoys beating the unmentionables out of all comers thrice weekly at the University Ju Jitsu club and at the Scottish Ju Jitsu Association headquarters. Such training sessions are inevitably followed by a drink or two "to aid the healing process" and "to promote recovery" . 

Greg left during 2007 to take up a programming job in London.
 

Johan van Niekerk BBSRC Funded to work on the project "Structural Proteomics of Rational Targets" SPoRT as part of the Scottish Structural Proteomics Facility (SSPF). Jo completed a BSc in Genetics with Biochemistry and Zoology subjects at The University of Pretoria (South Africa) in 1998, after which he started studying Computer Science. He started working it the IT industry in 2000, working on many different kinds of projects, most having two things in common: They seemed to require some sort of database design work, and they were completely unrelated to Biology.

Out of his interest in biology, he started doing a distance learning MSc in Bioinformatics through Manchester University in 2002. He moved to Scotland in 2004, hoping to be a little closer to the action in Bioinformatics research.

He joined Geoff's group in November 2004, and is happy to be working in a place where his colleagues know the real link between Entrez, Tea-coffee and Java. Jo is the LIMS manager for the SSPF (Scottish Structural Proteomics Facility).
 

Starting Date: 8th November 2004.

In August 2007 Jo moved on to a job with Ingres at Melbourne Australia.
 

Emily Jefferson: PostDoc on the ENFIN EU Network of Excellence project . 
After completing her first degree in biochemistry at the University of StAndrews, Emily joined the group in October 2003 on a BBSRC funded studentship working on the analysis and prediction of protein-protein interactions. Having completed her thesis, she joined the ENFIN project on 1st November 2006.
 

In June 2007 Emily moved out of science to a job with a financial services company.

 

Andrew Waterhouse - BBSRC Funded research assistant working on development of the JalView alignment viewer/editor as part of the Visualisation and Analysis of Biological Sequences Alignments and Structures project. With a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and an MSc in Information Technology from Heriot-Watt University Andrew worked for the Mouse Atlas project at the Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh as a Java Developer before moving further north. Andrew joined the Barton group from a Dundee based mobile phone software company and is hoping to bring DNA/Protein sequence analysis tools to the mobile phone market.

Andrew spends his spare time mountain biking the local and not so local hills or playing football for the aptly named Cannonfodder FC. Initially the move to Dundee promised to bring him closer to the snowfields of Glenshee and Aviemore, but after realising the Scottish snow season invariably lasts for 2 days in February is happy to go bagging the Monroes by foot alone.

Starting Date: 13th September 2004.

25th May 2007: Andrew has now moved on to a position at the Riken Institute, Yokohama, Japan.

Diego Miranda-Saavedra - is a Wellcome Trust 4-Year programme Ph.D. student. He joined the Group from September 2003 to complete a Ph.D. over the next three years.

Diego successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on protein kinase annotation and kinome comparison on 3rd May 2007 and is now a post-doc in Bertie Gottgens' group in the Department of Haematology, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, University of Cambridge.

Philip Quinlan  - is a programmer who worked with David Martin on the TACTICS project at in the medical school. He is now based 100% there.






 

Jonathan Barber   - joined the group in October 2001 as a BBSRC funded Ph.D. student, after graduating from Imperial College with a degree in Biotechnology, during which he spent a year working at (the then) GlaxoWellcome looking at medium-throughput screening.  Disliking the fact that biology practicals never ever work due to the biology involved, he decided to weather the nondeterminism of computers instead, where some other poor sod has done all the donkey work, and you get to sit down more.

When not shackled to his desk, Jon juggles, reads and drinks. Sometimes all at the same time, with predictably soggy results. Also, he's a fan of the cinema, especially the DCA, which is groovy. At least one evening a week he runs around chasing after a football trying his best to kick the damn thing. Not to be outdone by the other musical virtuosos in the group, he's currently looking for someone in the area to teach him how to play the flute so he can inflict his ability on other people unlucky enough to stray within range.

Dundee's fab, honest, come and join us. Although whether you trust a man who uses the words "fab" and "groovy" is another matter.

Jon defended his Thesis in August 2005 and is now following a career in Unix systems adminstration in the College of Life Sciences.

Sebastian Becker - was a summer student for July-Sept 2005. He worked with Jim Procter on developing code to generate Jalview XML files.

Bettina Leonhardt  - was a summer student for the months of August and September 2004. Bettina was from the University of Saarbruecken, Germany and wrote a perl library and web interface to alscript.

Andy Sanwell  - Was a visitor to the group and applied his training in computer science to a number of problems. In particular he polished the latest version of the STAMP package for protein structure comparison and alignment, and set up STAMP to scan the PDB on our Linux cluster.

Andy is currently (June 2004) spending more time on his other homebuilding projects at Perth.
 

Patrick Audley - Joined the Group on 1st May 2002 as Unix systems administrator and general computing Guru. Although based in the Group, Patrick had wide responsibility for high performance computing and networking in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre.  While he didn't always sit on the desk, he found it helps, sometimes... Patrick has his own extensive web site.

After two years transforming the computing systems in the Faculty of Life Sciences, Patrick has now returned to Canada.
 

Andreas Schlicker - Was a summer student from the University of Saarbruecken, Germany who worked in the group during August and September 2003.






 

Susanne Eyrisch - Was a summer student from the University of Saarbruecken, Germany who worked in the group during August and September 2003. With Andreas, she developed a web interface to the STAMP structural comparison program.





 

Caleb Webber graduated from the University of Warwick in October 1995 with a degree in Biological Sciences with Molecular Genetics. After a little rest from academia, he started work in the wEST radiation hybrid mapping group, Wellcome Trust Centre For Human Genetics, handling and developing their automated lab systems and bioinformatics. A chance introduction at this seemingly innocent venue led him to sign away the next three years working for a PhD under Geoff's guidance! Arriving at the EBI in December 1998, Caleb is currently examining the usefulness of primary structure comparison tools and hopes very much to head off into the trendy world of comparitive genome research.

Caleb spends all his free time singing and playing in a band called "Halo", described as "local dance/rock crossover types mixing grungey guitars with house beats and trip-hop atmospherics" by the music press. You can find out for yourself at www.bosstunes.com.

After successfully defending his Thesis on 1st April 2003, Caleb now works in the Ponting Group at the University of Oxford.

Goulven Kerbellec - Is a computer science summer student from Nantes, France. He spent three months from 1 June 2002 in the group developing web interfaces to software. While with us Goulven developed a neat interface to scanps. 

Steve Searle :-)  

Steve joined the group at EBI in February 1999 from the University of Bath.

In June 2001 Steve moved to a job working on the Ensembl project at the Sanger Institute.

Uwe Dengler :-)  

Uwe joined the group at EBI in March 1999. He worked mainly on the 3Dee domains database and moved on to a job with Novartis in Switzerland in Dec 2000.

James Cuff completed his BSc at Manchester University in June '96, during which a on year placement  was spent at the Company Research Laboratory, BNFL.  Previous research has included work with novel zeolite compounds, pthalocyanines and a final year honours project in protein structure prediction.  James joined the group in Oct. '96 on a joint venture between the MRC, and the OCMS.  He is currenly attempting to survive his PhD in protein structure prediction.  

James has no leisure time as Geoff is always giving him jobs to do :-)  

James successfully defended his Thesis in March 2000.

After a period working for Inpharmatica, James has now returned to Hinxton and is a Group Leader at the Sanger Institute.

James has now moved on again to the Broad Institute in Boston, USA.

In 2006 James moved again to Harvard University as Head of Life Sciences Computing.

Nirmala :-)  was a sabbatical visitor for 1999 from the company Novartis in the USA. She worked on combining the MAP fold recognition method with NMR
data. Nirmala returned to the US in January 2000.