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Anne Williams, PhD student in the Clostridial Biology Group and Microbial Physics Group at the University of Sheffield, was recently awarded with the Don Whitley Scientific (DWS) Travel Grant. Anne used the award to attend the 11th European Spores Conference (ESC) in Cambridge, where she had the opportunity to present her research, ‘Insights into spore germination: Live spore imaging in C. sporogenes’. To facilitate this research, Anne used a Whitley Anaerobic Workstation. Here’s what she had to say about her work and experience at ESC…
“I recently had the pleasure of presenting my work at the ESC in Cambridge, held between 8 – 10 April 2025. In my work, we used deletion mutants in co-culture with wild-type spores to analyse the function of three cysteine rich proteins found within the outermost layers of the C. sporogenes spore. We prepared all of our spores and set up our experiments in the Whitley Anaerobic Workstation before sealing our airtight imaging chamber within the cabinet and transferring it to the microscope for anaerobic live imaging. By employing phase-contrast and fluorescent time-lapse microscopy and automated pixel intensity tracking, we identified defects in spore rehydration and observed variations in individual spore morphology. Understanding the role of these proteins will help us unravel the molecular processes that govern spore germination, by which spores transition into a state capable of infecting food products and causing disease.”
I learned so much at this conference and developed many new ideas on how to take my work further - something which I don’t always find at the more general conferences that I have been to. It was great to meet all the ‘hotshots’ in the field and to see DWS attend! Thank you so much to DWS for the £100 grant that helped me attend this conference and connect with so many great people!”
We congratulate Anne on her success in presenting at the ESC, and hope that she can inspire other researchers wishing to present their work to their peers. If this is you and you’d like to receive support from DWS, please see our DWS Travel Grant page. For more information on our anaerobic workstation range, please see the products below.
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