Spring SciX 2026 was held this year at the University of Exeter from 14 to 16 April.

Several of our group attended with presentations from Amy Colleran, Joe Stradling, Harriet Willett and James Simons, as well as Vinicius Pereira dos Anjos – who was on a study visit from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

We are delighted that Harriet won one of the best flash poster prizes.  Congratulations Harriet!

We are also very proud that Amy talked in the Martin & Willis session and won the Martin & Willis prize.

The Martin & Willis Prize was initiated in 1994 in memory of the first two IRDG (Infrared and Raman Discussion Group) chairmen, Dr A. E. Martin (1950-1970) and Professor Harry W. Willis (1970-1990). The prize is awarded for the best presentation by a young spectroscopist (not necessarily a member of the IRDG) at the Martin & Willis Prize Meeting which traditionally run biennially and takes place the day before a full IRDG meeting.

This prize is highly competitive and it’s a huge honour for Amy, as well as our group, CMR and Liverpool – well done Amy!

This picture shows CMR at Spring SciX, with insets showing Harriet (LHS) and Amy (RHS) receiving their awards from Nick Stone (chair of the conference) and Chris Sammon (who chaired the Martin & Willis session).

Adam has written a brilliant article in The Biochemist on his life as a metabolomics expert working in the University of Liverpool’s NERC Environmental ‘Omics Facility (NEOF).

Adam discusses how he got into science, what he read at University, his role and duties within NEOF, as well as what his typical day looks like and the skills needed. He also provides some interesting insights from his experiences working on environmental samples.

Read all about Adam’s scientific journey here:

If you’re interested in NEOF follow this link

Fully funded PhD studentship available in our labs with Unilever on the development of Raman, SERS and mass spectrometry for Understanding the link between odorous thioalcohol generation and axillary microbiome bacteria at the molecular level.

Start date is October 2025

Full details and application process can be found on FindAPhD:

Nice Expert Opinion piece from Paul on Becoming an Expert: Using Raman spectroscopy to analyse vaping ‘e-liquids’.

This article details Paul’s analytical chemistry work in his kitchen and in the lab during the COVID-19 era. This resulted in a great article published in Analyst last year:

• Richardson, P.I.C., Burke, A., Gotts, N. & Goodacre, R. (2023) Quantifying PG:VG ratio and nicotine content in commercially available E-liquids using handheld Raman spectroscopy. Analyst 148, 4002-4011.

The continued increased in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing concern, with dire estimates that by 2050 more than 10 million people will die annually from AMR alone.

In Sahand’s open access paper we have developed for the first time optical photothermal infrared (O-PTIR) spectroscopy, coupled with deuterium isotope probing (DIP), for the unequivocal antibiotic profiling of Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC).

The exciting aspect is that this approach allows for the detection of AMR at the single-cell level.

Published in the Frontiers in Microbiology Sahand’s first paper features in our Health and Life Science faculty’s #MyFirstPaper campaign. Find out more here.

Our research group has worked very hard work over the last year, and it’s been nice to have such a great team as part of the Laboratory for Bioanalytical Spectroscopy in the CMR.

It is fair to say that 2022 has been another strange year thanks to COVID-19.  But it is good to think that this year we are starting to get back to normal and let’s hope it continues for 2023.

In 2022 we welcomed Dakshat as a postdoc in Easter, Harriet and Joe as new PhD students in October, and very recently in December Becky as a MPhil student.  We also welcomed Jackie and her administrative support for the group is brilliant.  We also said goodbye to Amanda and wish her all the very best within her new faculty role as Executive Officer / PA to the Director of Student Experience and Enhancement.

We had a successfully year with many research outputs, and in particular the highlights I’d like to make are that:

• Iva had her first paper published in Metabolomics on using metabolomics of serum from COVID-19 patients for assessing disease severity and outcome.
• Tia had her first paper published in Frontiers of Microbiology on the development of metabolic fingerprint analysis using FT-IR spectroscopy of recombinant protein production in E. coli.
• Shwan had a paper published in RSC’s Chemical Science on Raman and infrared spectroscopy can be combined simultaneously to study bacterial infections at the single cell level.

These all featured in the Faculty’s First Paper Campaign – Well done all!

In other news on publications with Rick we had some successes with work from mQACC (Metabolomics Quality Assurance and Quality Control Consortium) with a couple of nice reviews/white papers being published in Metabolomics:

• Quality assurance and quality control reporting in untargeted metabolic phenotyping: mQACC recommendations for analytical quality management
• Reference materials for MS-based untargeted metabolomics and lipidomics: a review by the metabolomics quality assurance and quality control consortium (mQACC)

We had several great successes:

• NERC have funded us for a training grant in multiomics and this was a nice grant written and led by Cate.
• Rick led an MRC grant for an LC-MS for precision medicine.
• Our Unilever project on combining metabolomics and transcriptomics on human skin was awarded and Dakshat started on this after Easter.
• Our EPSRC-SFI grant on Biopharmaceutical Production was awarded and Cassio started on this in July. We have also partnered with Renishaw and have a PhD to complement this – this starts October 2023. 
• Our BBSRC ALERT21 equipment grant was awarded and in December we have ordered a SCIEX EchoMS for very highthroughput metabolomics and with an LC addition will allow us to perform targeted lipidomics. 
• We collaborated with Joe Turner on a big MRC grant funded in the summer using lipidomics to look at bioactive lipids in filariasis.
• Finally, Roy led a BBSRC impact acceleration grant for faculty.

We’ve been fortunate and let’s also hope this continues in 2023.

Lastly Howbeer and I hosted Spring SciX which went off really well, despite the high levels of COVID in the UK at that time. I’d like to personally thank Howbeer for his hard work and dedication on this. He certainly did all the heavy lifting and made the meeting one that we can all be very proud of as it showcased Liverpool in a really nice way.

Wishing you all the very best for a peaceful, productive and prosperous new year.

Shwan’s open access paper tackles the important area of sepsis where Raman and infrared spectroscopy can be combined simultaneously to study bacterial infections at the single cell level.

This is a really nice collaboration with our colleagues Enitan, Rachel and Christopher in the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Liverpool.

Published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Chemical Science Shwan’s joint first paper features in our Health and Life Science faculty’s #MyFirstPaper campaign. Find out more here.