DNA: Discovering new adventures Jenny Hayes
Event details
How do our bodies make DNA? How do we destroy intruders’ DNA? How do we repair our DNA when it is damaged? By looking at questions like these, scientists have learned to read DNA and can even create the DNA we want.
Biochemist Jenny Hayes of the University of York explains how being able to make and manipulate DNA has led to many discoveries in disease diagnosis and treatment, from pinpointing genetic diseases to creating insulin and other biological drugs.
Join Jenny and discover how our DNA journey has collected tools from many exotic organisms, from super-tough microbes living in volcanic vents through to poisonous mushrooms and deadly bacteria.
About the speaker
Dr Jenny Hayes is a Research Technical Specialist at the University of York, UK. She did her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, including a Masters project on developing a new split protein tag in Professor Mark Howarth’s lab. Before coming to York, she worked at a number of contracts around Oxford. This included learning cell culture at Oxford
Biomedica, making Zika viral DNA at a startup, and extracting DNA from saliva samples in a clinic. She did her PhD in Biological Chemistry at the University of York, working on improving cell labelling using sortase, supervised by Dr Martin Fascione. After this she worked on catnip in Dr Benjamin Lichman’s lab, and is currently working with Dr Jared Cartwright on new varieties of DNA polymerase in the Technology Facility at the Department of Biology.
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