Katie Beirns
Katie Beirns
PhD Student
Thesis title: Investigating mitochondrial dynamics using liquid phase electron microscopy methods.
Primary Theme: Correlated imaging.
Secondary themes: Structural biology and Biological Mass Spectrometry.
Franklin supervisors: Dr Brian Caffrey, Dr Judy Kim and Dr Anna Simmonds.
University: University of Oxford
University supervisor: Prof. Karl Morten
Katie’s project is focused on studying the dynamic processes involved in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation using liquid phase electron microscopy. This will be coupled with mass spectrometry techniques to investigate proposed models of extra-mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.
Katie completed her undergraduate degree in medical biochemistry from the University of Leeds with her final year project investigating novel pathways in non-canonical Hedgehog signalling. Following this Katie completed a Master’s degree at the University of Manchester, conducting a research project aiming to characterise the collagen VI alpha 3 chain. This involved biophysical studies using small angle X-ray scattering at Diamond Light Source and investigating protein-protein interactions using affinity purification-mass spectrometry. Katie is looking forward to exploring further research techniques within the various themes at the Franklin.