Dr Natalie Byrd

About

• I’m a PDRA in the Geomicrobiology Research Group at the University of Manchester (Prof. Jon Lloyd). I would describe myself as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, and love working on collaborative, applied projects with real-world impacts. During my PhD I worked with the UK’s Low Level Radioactive Waste Repository and the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory to develop understanding of the high-pH biogeochemistry of low-level radioactive waste. This included investigating the influence of bacteria on radionuclide speciation and fate in challenging repository environments. After my PhD, I changed direction slightly and began focussing on biotechnology-based work: optimising the Cu biorecovery and biosynthesis of Cu nanoparticle (‘CuNP’) catalysts with Shewanella oneidensis. During this work, our team identified the key mechanism involved in Cu bioreduction and I gained some hands-on biocatalysis and bioengineering experience along the way. As our work to optimise Cu bioreduction continues ELEMENTAL WP2, I am enjoying learning more about cellular mechanisms of bioreduction, whilst working with the various new oneidensis strains generated by colleagues in the Cavet Group. On ELEMENTAL, I am also involved in WP5.7, focussed on radionuclide bioremediation, taking me back to my PhD roots! Here, I am interested in using engineering biology to enhance microbial bioremediation of radioactively contaminated land and effluents, with a key driver being to find solutions for some of the most complex industry sites, like Sellafield. We are aiming to identify beneficial genes that help microbes withstand the various stressors imposed within radioactively contaminated environments, so we can make bioengineering-based improvements to generate optimised bioremediation strains. To explore this, I have been working alongside WP2 colleagues at The Quadram Institute and using the TraDIS-Xpress technique.

• Key areas of expertise:
• Radionuclide biogeochemistry
• Bioreduction and nanoparticle biosynthesis
• Anaerobic geomicrobiology
• Materials characterisation

See Natalie’s personal profile and Linked In profile