Earlier this year we took our Escape Lab outreach activity on the road, funded by @microbiologysociety.org & @biochemsoc.bsky.social Outreach Grants. We had a blast teaching kids about viruses & the drug discovery process. Check out how Microbiology Society's Adam & Clare got on with Escape Lab!

Like Escape rooms? 🧐 What about Escape LABS! 🥳 Microbiology Society staff, Adam and Clare, travelled to De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, to take on an interactive lab-themed activity. @shivkumarlab.bsky.social Watch the video here: microb.io/4mbADZa

Such a pleasure to host Dr Petra Mlcochova at our Leicester Institute of Pharmaceutical Health Innovations PGR and Postdoc Club last week. Petra gave a brilliant talk on her career and move from academia to industry. Great advice for our students exploring a future in biotech!

Huge congratulations to the newly-minted Dr Gemma Cooper for completing her PhD viva yesterday! It has been a pleasure to supervise Gemma and see her grow from strength to strength! Thanks to our collaborators Tim Snape, Parvez Haris, Nigel Temperton, examiners Efstathios Giotis, Ray Allan. #proudPI

Thanks to all the ECR speakers for their various insights (and honest reflections) on navigating the research and funding landscape. Hopefully this will be the first of many, to help us bring ECRs across disciplines together!

We had our first Health and Life Sciences Early Career Researcher #ECR Showcase today, starting with an inspiring keynote by Dr Rachel Bolton-King, who gave us a tour of her career to date, and leaving us with some great advice on embracing opportunities.

Well done Gemma Cooper and Abdelrhman Moustafa for presenting their PhD research at the Applied Microbiology International ECS conference yesterday! We enjoyed the diversity in microbiology projects, and the super encouraging panel discussion on careers.

Our department is looking to hire an Associate/Full Professor in the field of Virology. Please share and apply if you are intersted. Also happy to answer any questions
recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09552

Thanks for a great week @microbiologysociety.org, we had a blast at the #Microbio25 Annual Conference in Liverpool! A lovely full circle moment bringing my own PhD students to the conference nearly 15 years after my first Microsoc conference as a student!

We're in Liverpool this week for the @microbiologysociety.org Annual Conference. Excited to present our work and meet people, do come and say hi if you're there! 👩‍🔬 👨‍🔬 #Microbio25

Well done to our #Virology Lab Assistant Frontrunner Interns - Jess Harris and Grace Lee - who had their last day in the lab last week! Thanks to DMU Internships for supporting and funding this scheme.

Thanks to our volunteers and outreach grants from @biochemsoc.bsky.social and @microbiologysociety.org for funding all our Escape Lab activities during #BritishScienceWeek2025!

We ended #BritishScienceWeek2025 with a visit to the
Science Oxford Centre Family day last weekend. Over 70 young scientists found our antiviral drug! Well done also to PhD student Gemma for delivering a great talk on viruses and vaccines to her youngest audience so far!

We loved spending the day with the Forest Lodge Year 5s doing science and talking all about viruses (and I think they did too - they even made us pinky promise to come back and visit them next year!) #BritishScienceWeek

Next up for #BritishScienceWeek, we visited Forest Lodge Academy. ~85 Year 5s across three classes got into the competitive spirit to find our antiviral drug! We loved the many questions - got us talking about how viruses spread, where viruses come from, and why we became scientists!

Our second stop for #BritishScienceWeek2025 was St Joseph's Leicester, with Mrs Darby's Year 5 class. Well done to all the young scientists for their great clue solving, many many interesting questions, and imaginative team names! We had a great day!

We kicked off at the Challenge Zone at De Montfort University TeenTech Festival - we were joined by young scientists from Leicester secondary schools trying to solve our clues and find our antiviral drug! Well done to Team A. for coming up at the top of the leader board!

It's #BritishScienceWeek2025 and we are having a busy week taking our Escape Lab: A Journey into Drug Discovery #outreach activity to various venues.

Thanks to the @biochemsoc.bsky.social and @microbiologysociety.org for scientific outreach grants for these activities!

We have a #PhD scholarship (fully funded for UK Home students) available for an April 2025 start. Deadline for applications is 8th Jan - one week to go! Find out more here: shivkumarlab.co.uk/positions. Get in touch if you're interested!

Embracing the New Year, New Me sentiment by (finally) joining Bluesky. We are a virology lab at the Leicester School of Pharmacy, De Montfort University, UK. Interested in antiviral drug development and infection control strategies.