Dr Ellen Nisbet
Member at large
Associate Professor of Microbiology; Director of Research
School of Biosciences, Sutton Bonington Campus
University of Nottingham
Ellen examines the evolution of the chloroplast and mitochondria, in both free-living and parasitic organisms. Her main focus is on dinoflagellates, key symbionts in coral reefs, and the apicomplexa, which contain a remnant, non-photosynthetic chloroplast. More recently, her work analyzing RNA processing in the Apicomplexa has shown that the apicoplast transcription is polycistronic, with extensive post-transcriptional processing. In doing so, she has identified a number of proteins involved in post-transcriptional RNA processing and is in the process of characterising this pathway.