Emily Lacey

Emily is a PhD student on the University of Oxford Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP (BBSRC), undergoing a joint research project between the Pirbright Institute and the Diamond Light Source.

Emily’s research uses multimodal bioimaging – namely cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) – to gain ultrastructural insights into animal RNA-virus replication at near-angstrom resolutions. Organelle targets include replication organelles and inclusion bodies within foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (bRSV), respectively. Emily is working in the Viral Glycoproteins group led by Dr Dalan Bailey, the Picornavirus Molecular Biology group led by Dr Toby Tuthill and the Bioimaging group led by Professor Pippa Hawes.

Prior to her PhD research, Emily was the Section Lead for Liquid-Handling Automation at the UK’s largest COVID-19 ‘Lighthouse Laboratory’, where she managed, trained, and supported a dedicated team of key-worker scientists to implement a 24/7 automated pipeline critical for the UK’s pandemic response. Emily graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a first-class BSc in Biology, where she was awarded the Biological and Medical Sciences Project Award for her dissertation: Genomic surveillance of mosquito insecticide resistance in Lao PDR.