The facilities and community at Loughborough

The facilities have allowed me to work in environments I have not had the opportunity to work in before for my undergrad, for example, the cell culturing and bio labs within the STEMlab building. In these labs, I have been taught how to culture bacteria as well as different methods of colony isolation. After these lab sessions, we produced bacteriophages specific to the bacteria strains and learnt about the amplification techniques which can be used in industry to scale-up the phage production. The labs also refreshed my knowledge of lab safety which will be necessary to remember for my future career.

I have the chance to use specialist high-tech equipment for my MSc project which I have not used before; these include spray dryers and freeze dryers which will be used for encapsulating bacteriophage formulations to treat soft tissue and wound infections.

Loughborough’s sporting community has inspired me to become more active and productively use my days on campus. The modern spaces available for students to work in have motivated me to do additional work around my module content including additional reading of published literature and using Loughborough’s LEARN system to find supporting information which has been recommended by my lecturers to read through.

Teaching and support

My project supervisor has been able to assist me with any queries about my project or any other modules. All my lecturers have been approachable and respond almost instantly to any questions I have emailed them with.