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Jess Buddle, a PhD student at the University of Sheffield, was recently awarded the Don Whitley Scientific (DWS) Travel Grant. Jess used the award to attend the Cross-Channel C. Difficile (3CdF) Conference in Paris where she presented her research, 'Experimental Evolution of Vancomycin Resistance in Clostridioides difficile: Pathways and Mechanistic Insights'.
We asked Jess to share more about her research and her experience in Paris:
“I’m Jess Buddle, a student in the final few weeks of my PhD at the University of Sheffield. I’m eternally grateful to everyone at DWS who has given me the opportunity to present my research investigating vancomycin resistance in C. difficile around the world. Over the last few years, we have performed a large-scale evolution, sequenced many genomes, and looked at mutations involved in resistance acquisition in C. difficile. We also validated the mutations we thought were important, discovering a novel route to resistance involving three previously uncharacterised genes. We determined the mechanism involved, did some beautiful microscopy visualisations, and found evidence of synergistic interactions. In classic PhD fashion, some of these huge breakthroughs occurred in my final 3 months in the lab, so I was really grateful when a conference came along where I was able to share these findings.
The DWS Travel Grant gave me the opportunity to attend the cross-channel C. difficile (3CdF) conference held in Paris. The conference aimed to promote networking between groups working on C. difficile in France and the UK, and encompassed a range of talks, poster sessions, and a conference dinner. I had a brilliant time networking, chatting to the lovely people manning the DWS stand, getting to know other early career researchers, and presenting my work. Since my thesis was already written, it was a great way to present the “finished package” – everything we had found throughout my PhD. Overall, I had the best time at 3CdF, and am glad I got to round off my PhD with such a fantastic conference. Thanks again to DWS for their travel funding!”
Jess also recently published her paper, 'Identification of pathways to high-level vancomycin resistance in Clostridioides difficile that incur high fitness costs in key pathogenicity traits’, where she used a Whitley Anaerobic Workstation. We are delighted to see our workstations helping to facilitate doctoral research and we congratulate Jess for presenting in Paris and publishing her recent paper.
If you are interested in our travel grants, please find more details on the DWS Travel Grant page. For more information on our Anaerobic Workstation range please see the products below or email us at sales@dwscientific.co.uk
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