The Webster Centre for Infectious Diseases supports the development of young scientists by offering summer studentships.
Contact us to apply:
james.ussher@otago.ac.nz
2016 Summer Scholarship
Eleanor Burgess
An undergraduate summer scholarship was awarded to Eleanor, a year 3 BioMedSci Infection and Immunity, supervised by Dr Lyn Wise, Department of Microbiology & Immunology. Her project title was A new tool for developing antiviral skin therapies.
2015 Summer Scholarship
Umaima Khatoon
Umaima's research project, supervised by Associate Professor Merilyn Hibma, was That E-cadherin expression and Langerhans cells numbers are reduced in mouse papillomavirus (MmuPV) virus infected skin.
2014 Summer Scholarships
George Poulter
George, a BSc(Hons), Plant Molecular Biotechnology, year 4 student, was supervised by Professor Greg Cook, Department of Microbiology & Immunology. His project was Rapid and specific detection of multi-drug resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Samuel Wojcik
A BSc student, was supervised by Associate Professor Russell Poulter, Department of Biochemistry. His project was Using the CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing system to analyse the virulence of pseudomonas.
Terry Zhang
Terry, a BBiomedSc(Hons) student was supervised by Associate Professor Merilyn Hibma, Department of Microbiology & Immunology. His project was Phenotyping Langerhans cell like cells after the treatment of microparticles from HPV16E6 expressing keratinocytes.
2013 Summer Scholarships
Elizabeth Prentice
Elizabeth, final year BSc majoring in microbiology, was co-supervised by Dr Peter Fineran (Department of Microbiology & Immunology), Drs Monica Gerth and Wayne Patrick (both Department of Biochemistry). Her project title was Generation and screening of a transposon mutant library in the kiwifruit canker phytopathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae.
Jessica Thomson
Jessica, a BSc student was supervised by Professor Iain Lamont, Department of Biochemistry. Her project was Iron uptake in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
2012 Summer Scholarship
Vikesh Gupta
Vikesh, a BSc student, was supervised by Professor Frank Griffin, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, conducted a project entitled Genetic Markers for resistance to chronic infection in deer.
2010 Summer Scholarships
From left: Hyon-Xhi Tan, Katy Booth and Liam Brennan.
Three Undergraduate Summer Scholarships were awarded:
Hyon-Xhi Tan worked with Associate Professor Russell Poulter of the Department of Biochemistry. Hyon-Xhi was doing a Bachelor of Applied Science with Honours in Molecular Biotechnology. The research he undertook involves biosysnthesis of cyctic peptides.
Liam Brennan worked with Associate Professor Alex McLellan in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. Liam was studying a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Microbiology. His research over the Summer was on the 'Development of lipophilic drug conjugates to target intracellular Mycobacteria'.
Katy Booth worked with Professor Iain Lamont, also from the Department of Biochemistry. Katy was working towards a Bachelor of Biomedical Science in Infection and Immunity. Her research was on the study of the outer membrane proteins of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients.
2008 Summer Scholarships
Sarah James
Sarah, a BSc student, worked in the Tate Laboratory developing methodology to identify and characterise cellular proteins that interact with the HIV-1 frameshift element.
Emma Scaletti
Emma, a 4th year Honours student, worked in the Krause Laboratory on the purification and crystalisation of alanine racemase from Staphylococcus aureus.