Talk: Organic Structures – The Building Blocks of Biology
Running fromLast event: Thursday 18 November 2021 at 7pm
- Free (booking required)
- The Nest
All life on earth is made of up of the same building blocks, which determine the structures, functions and interactions of molecules, cells, tissues, organisms and environments. In this talk, Gavin McStay will discuss how life is built from simple building blocks, how this has been “designed” via evolution and how humans are now beginning to design life with natures building blocks.
Gavin grew up and went to school in Upton in Chester where his love of experimental science started before heading off to university to study biochemistry in Leeds and Bristol from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. After earning his PhD Gavin moved to the USA to carry out post-doctoral research on mitochondria and cell death, starting in San Diego, California, then to Memphis, Tennessee then to New York. Gavin then started lecturing in New York before heading back to the UK in 2018. He is an associate professor of molecular biology at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent where he continues his research on mitochondria and cell death with students while also teaching about aspects of molecular biology from evolution to understanding disease. If Gavin is not in the lab or lecture theatre he will be getting coffee and cake or will be on a badminton court or travelling for them.