Samantha Treagus

I am a collaborative PhD student at the University of Exeter, working with CEFAS on a PhD involving the molecular detection of viruses in the aquatic environment (supervised by James Lowther and Craig Baker-Austin). In particular, I am focussing on the presence of Hepatitis E virus (HEV) in aquatic organisms, and the sources through which the aquatic environment can be contaminated with HEV.

Currently I am based at the Weymouth CEFAS laboratory, and I am particularly interested in the fields of molecular biology, microbiology and virology, and human disease. I graduated from the University of Surrey with a First-Class B. Sc in Biochemistry and completed a professional training year with CEFAS during my degree. This was focussed on improving methods for estimating viable norovirus within shellfish using membrane hybridisation and qPCR techniques. My university dissertation focussed on factors that could influence the antibiotic tolerance of Mycobacterium smegmatis, using M. smegmatis as a surrogate organism for M. tuberculosis, to identify if these factors could play a role in the antibiotic tolerance of M. tuberculosis during treatment.