Professor Alice Pyne
MSci, MRes, EngD
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Professor of Biophysics
UKRI Future Leaders Fellow
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+44 114 222 5969
Full contact details
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
91直播
S1 3JD
- Profile
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I am a Professor of Biophysics and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of 91直播. Following my undergraduate degree in Physics at Bristol and my EngD in Biophysics at UCL, I was awarded EPSRC and MRC fellowships to establish my independent research group at UCL. I moved to 91直播 in 2019 as a Lecturer, where I established the Henry Royce Nanocharacterisation Laboratory
My research focusses on developing high-resolution Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) imaging methods for structural characterisation of biomolecules in solution. I have pioneered single-molecule imaging studies of the DNA double helix, including unique time-resolved imaging at the atomic scale, showing DNA molecules twisting and 鈥渄ancing鈥 in ways that had not previously been imaged. I have a keen interest in bioimage analysis, and have developed an automated image analysis pipeline, , that combines AFM image correction, molecule identification, and tracing into a single tool.
- Qualifications
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- EngD Biophysics, University College London & the National Physical Laboratory, High Resolution Atomic Force Microscopy of Functional Biological Molecules (2015)
- MRes (Hons) Distinction, UCL, Molecular Modelling and Materials Science (2011)
- MSci (Hons) Physics, University of Bristol (2009)
- Research interests
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My research is highly interdisciplinary, working closely with industry to engineer new high-resolution Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) technologies which enable us to understand the fundamental properties of biological molecules at the nanoscale. These technologies have enabled us to perform unique time-resolved imaging of DNA at the sub-molecular scale. Beyond hardware, I am spearheading the development of an open-source, automated AFM image analysis pipeline, TopoStats, which is becoming the field鈥檚 鈥済old standard鈥, for which I was awarded the 2023 Royal Microscopy Society鈥檚 AFM & SPM award. Our current research impact spans fundamental biological understanding to therapeutic development.
Key research interests:
- Atomic Force Microscopy
- Open-source image analysis pipelines
- Structure and Function of nucleic acids
- Materials surface characterisation at the nanoscale
- Publications
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Journal articles
Chapters
Conference proceedings papers
Software / Code
Datasets
Other
Preprints
- Research group
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PhD Students:
- Daniel Rollins (AFM analysis of supercoiled DNA interactions)
- Mingxue Du (TopoStats: Automating AFM analysis of DNA & protein interactions)
- Libby Holmes (Complex DNA structures in cancer)
- Max Gamil (Deep probabilistic models for analysing complex DNA structures)
PhD Students (UCL):
Kavit Main (Single molecule insights into DNA-Topoiomerase interactions)
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Fellow of the Royal Microscopy Society
- Committee member of the British Biophysical Society
- Committee member of the Royal Microscopy Society - vice chair of the Data Analysis in Microscopy (DAIM) subgroup
Links