Signalling Nanodomains Lab Visualising the structures of intracellular communication, one molecule at a time

I completed my doctorate at the University of Sheffield in 2023, where I used bacteriophage transduction and immunofluorescence microscopy to localise key virulence factors displayed on the surface of the human commensal bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. The display patterns I observed correlated to data our group had generated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), wherein different architectures of the peptidoglycan cell wall were identified across distinct locations of the cell surface at the nanometre scale. Prior to my PhD, I achieved a distinction in my master’s degree at the University of Birmingham, where I used sandwich ELISA assays to characterise the interleukin profiles of murine macrophage cell lines in response to infection by the carcinogenic bacteria Helicobacter pylori and the oral commensal bacteria Actinomyces oris. My current work involves the use of Expansion Microscopy (ExM) to identify structures in HeLa cells using a range of hydrogel chemistries. My collaborations and interests involve Electron Microscopy (EM) and AFM of bacterial samples and surfaces, including the structure of Clostridium sporogenes spores.

Search for Dr Thomas Hamer's papers on the Research page