Professor of Evolutionary Systems Biology and Environmental Omics
School of Biosciences and Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and AI
Deputy Director of CERJ, the Centre for Environmental Research and Justice
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom
Alan Turing Fellow, Alan Turing Institute for data science and artificial intelligence, UK
Guest Professor at Robust Nature, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany
Founder and CEO of Daphne Water Solutions Limited (www.dwsol.co.uk)
Founder and CTO of EnviSion BioSequencing and BioComputing
Research highlights
Waterfleas hold key to cleaner environment and better human health
We harness Daphnia to provide a scalable low-cost, low-carbon way of removing pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals from wastewater. This approach avoids the toxic by-products typically associated with current technologies.
Daphnia as sentinel species for environmental health protection
Chemical pollution damages human and ecosystem health. We present a framework that broadens the use of the sentinel species Daphnia as a diagnostic and bioremediation agent of water pollution.
The biodiversity Time Machine
Just like a time machine, we go back in time and reconstruct a library of biological, chemical, environmental and functional changes at a yearly resolution, enabling the understanding of the spatio-temporal impacts of abiotic change on ecosystems and their services.
Ghost DNA and AI unravel 100 years of biodiversity loss
We quantify the ‘ghost’ genetic material that has been left behind to reconstruct entire communities over 100 years. We interrogate these data, together with climate and pollution data using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the specific pollutants that caused the historic loss of species observed today.
The hologenome of Daphnia magna
We present the first hologenome of Daphnia magna, consisting of a chromosomal-level assembly of the D. magna genome and the draft assembly of its metagenome. By sequencing and mapping transcriptomes from exposures to environmental conditions and from developmental morphological landmarks, we expand the previously annotates gene set for this species.
Impacts of weedkiller on wildlife
Even at approved regulatory levels, the weedkiller Roundup causes embryonic development failure, significant DNA damage, and interferes with the ’ metabolism and gut function
