The world's fossil fuel resources are being depleted around the world as an energy source, becoming a major contributor to green house gas emissions. Therefore, cleaner, and greener strategies to supply the worlds energy demands are becoming more and more pressing. The production of biofuels from biomass (sourced from waste products, i.e., spent grain, materials sourced from forestry/paper productions etc.) is a way to produce a greener energy with lower emissions, providing a strategy to combat the worlds energy demand. The waste biomass is built out of the carbohydrate molecules cellulose and hemicellulose, providing a source for biofuel production. The production of biofuels from these waste materials requires physical and or chemical pretreatment to initiate the breakdown of the recalcitrant carbohydrate material before saccharisation occurs through treatment with carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes). Following, the monosaccharides provided are then fermented into suitable biofuel products including ethanol and butanol. The CAZymes used in this project will be sourced from thermophilic bacterial species, finding suitable 'enzymatic cocktails' to process the carbohydrates into simple monosaccharides for fermentation.

The project will advance knowledge of early modern European history by exploring an ever-present, yet neglected, feature of celebrations and festivals during the period: cheap, ephemeral print. Graduations, weddings, pageants, fairs: participants from across the social spectrum looked to cheap print to commemorate the special events that shaped and marked their lives. Using archival research to examine bodies of hitherto unexplored print, the project will contribute to social and cultural histories by providing new insights into life milestones and local celebrations. It will also join the vanguard of book history research by attending to the print of everyday life: ephemera.

Understanding the variation present in animal signals can provide insight into drivers behind it, such as the social structure, ecology, distribution and genetic diversity present in populations. Geographic variation specifically has been observed in the vocalisations of several taxa and in some, particularly birds, has been used to evidence the presence of vocal 'dialects'. In marine mammals, dialects have been reported for northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), killer whales (Orcinus orca) and sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Though previous studies have been conducted to investigate geographic variation in delphinid vocalisations, little is known about such variation in UK waters. Additionally, the vast majority of delphinid communication research focusses on their whistles alone, yet the animals also produce a variety of click sounds. Several odontocete species do not produce whistles, suggesting that there are communicative aspects to these non-whistle vocalisations. Methodological issues in previous studies have also led to unclear results since variation between groups may not represent geographic variation when sample sizes are low, particularly for animals that show large inter-individual and group diversity within geographic regions. Finally, the drivers of variation in delphinid vocalisations remain largely unknown. In some species, such as the killer whales of the Pacific Northwest, dialects show a strong correlation with relatedness, with different familial units utilising distinct vocal repertoires from one another. However, it could also be the case that differences in behaviour elicit vocal differences as certain populations utilise behaviourally specific calls more often than others. Similarly, external environmental factors, such as ambient noise levels, may influence the structure and usage of different vocal signals. Preliminary study indicates that bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) on the east and west coasts of Scotland acoustically differ from one another substantially, providing some evidence for the presence of dialects given their geographical proximity and mixing potential (Hargrave, 2023 MSc. thesis). Other species such as Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus) and white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) can also be found around the UK and their population structure has not been studied here before. The proposed study will perform acoustic analyses on the vocal repertoires (whistles, clicks and burst-pulsed sounds) of these wild delphinid species in the waters of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, evaluating potential similarities or discrepancies between the vocalisations of individuals, groups and geographic regions. Historic recordings obtained from focal-follow and line transect acoustic surveys conducted in the North Sea and the Northeast Atlantic will be analysed using the Raven Pro software package to isolate delphinid vocalisations. The acoustic parameters of these vocalisations will then be calculated using the ROCCA module for PAMguard (www.pamguard.org), producing a comprehensive suite of measures for both tonal and broadband signals (a total of 56 parameters). This analysis will be conducted at the level of individuals, groups and broader geographic regions; investigated via the use of random forest classification modelling. Other machine learning classification methods may also be utilised depending on the task in question. Additionally, the role of potential drivers of any variation, such as behavioural context or learning, environmental variables, and relatedness, will be investigated via behavioural observations (obtained via animal-mounted camera tags, drones and visual observation), photo identification, and available environmental (available from CEFAS, Scottish Coastal Observatory, British Oceanographic Data Centre) and genetic data (e.g. Louis et al. 2021, Sci. Advan. 7: eabg1245).

Gene therapy supplies your cells with genes either to replace faulty ones, or to supply genes that can combat other forms of disease. These genes are then translated into proteins. Often, however, a number of different proteins (and hence genes) are required for successful therapy. This work is designed to develop a system whereby multiple genes can be strung together to form a single gene: a multi-gene. It is much easier and safer to introduce one gene via gene therapy, than try to introduce many individual genes into a cell. The chances of this new type of multi-gene being able to produce all of its different proteins (and all at the same time) is very much higher than is the case with many individual genes. The methods we wish to develop here will extend the range of diseases that may be treated by gene therapy.

We propose to develop an integrated photonic platform based on holographic metasurfaces (HIPPO) for the high-throughput imaging of biological specimens in microfluidic environments. The integrated platform combines high spatial resolution and large field of view acquisition with the throughput requirements of modern screening techniques. Current solutions rely upon complex illumination systems and bulky imaging setups to increase the spatial spectrum range and reduce the background fluorescence. The goal of this project is to move the complexity to a portable optofluidic chip and pave the way for high-throughput assays in every biology lab, turning high-throughput and high-resolution microscopy into an instrument for biologists, rather than for biophysicists.