Final thoughts...

I don't feel like any of my posts do justice to the wonderful people I have met on my travels. Words fail me when I try to express my experience. It has certainly exceeded all expectations and this final post is dedicated to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for giving me this life changing opportunity and to former fellow, Dr Andrew Hart for inspiring me to apply. I have made many wonderful connections with some outstanding scientists and I really hope I can bring my knowledge back to the UK to benefit and enhance scientific developments in my research field. I plan on giving talks to different audiences and promoting the trust as best I can. 

Winston Churchill was a man of perseverance, bravery and persistence. This inspirational figure remains a role model to many, 47 years after his passing. My lack of science background prior to university has led me to hold a lot of these traits and I really have learnt that anything is possible if you apply yourself and want it bad enough. 

The trust do a fantastic job to support passionate fellows like myself and I strongly urge people to apply. Applying for the fellowship has, hands down, been the best thing I have ever done and I have so many astonishing memories that I will never forget.....

Thank you

www.wcmt.org.uk

My sixth and final visit, JEOL

JEOL is a leading global supplier of scientific instruments used for research and development in the fields of nanotechnology, life sciences, optical communication, forensics, and biotechnology. I was fortunate enough to visit the company for two weeks. 

For the first four days, I attended a training course on Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART), given by the co-inventor of the instrument, Dr Robert (Chip) Cody, and assisted by Dr John Dane. The course was attended by three other people, so it was a very small group, meaning a lot of hands on experience with the DART. This course covered a lot of material in a short space of time but by the end of it, I knew the ins and outs of AccuTOF DART (Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer), as well as being comfortable running my own samples (empty pupal cases collected from Texas A&M University and Dayton University), changing parameters to suit my sample requirements and analysing the data. 

The remainder of my time at JEOL was spent having some invaluable one-on-one time with Chip and John on the DART as well as a number of other instruments including one I am very familiar with from my PhD research, Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). I also collected some up close and personal images on the powerful Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and also some Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation (MALDI) data. The wealth  of information I was able to gather from my samples was unbelievable and to have so many experts at hand was phenomenal. 

This SEM image shows the posterior spiracle (one of a pair) on the empty pupal case from the blowfly species, Chrysomya rufifacies. The pupal case is the hardened skin of the third instar larvae. Larvae use these spiracles to breath when they are submerged in food and are often mistaken for eyes. The number of slits visible indicates the instar (1 slit for 1st instar, 2 slits for 2nd instar and 3 slits for 3rd instar). They are also used a morphological trait to enable species identification. 

This SEM image shows a few of the spines on the case which runs along the tubercles of each body segment. They are used to assist in movement. Their formation and shape also provides information on the species. 

The results I was able to collect were exceptional but the best results came on the second to last day in the lab (typical!) Chip and I are very excited about them and they will be published in the near future. 

Whilst I was with JEOL, the lovely Pam Mansfield (from the marketing department) quenched my horse needs by taking me to a wonderful show jumping competition at Silver Oaks Equestrian Centre in New Hampshire. It was a well attended five day show  and it was wonderful to get out and see some top international riders as well as see a magnificent display from some stunning Lusitanos. 

I would like to thank JEOL for accommodating my visit, with special thanks to Chip and John for helping me so much and giving me so much of their time. The results gathered are mind blowing and I cannot wait to see them published! I hope this is the start of a very exciting collaboration. Seeing the co-inventor of DART working away on his own instrument is an experience I will never forget. He has an exceptional mind and he is indeed the "God of DART"!! Thanks Chip! 

Fifth visit - Ohio State University, Columbus

Well, what can I say about this visit...it was short, but very very sweet!! I spent one day with Captain David Rose of the Ohio State University Police. Former fellow, Dr Andrew Hart, suggested I visited Captain Rose and I am very glad I did. So much was packed into the day and it was a lot of fun to be driven around in a  Dodge undercover police car! 

The day started off with a tour of the police station followed by a behind the scene tour of the imposing Ohio State Football Stadium, home of the Buckeyes (capacity of around 102,000!!) 

We then headed over to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation Laboratory where Captain Rose kindly arrange a tour. We saw everything from the firearm and ballistics lab, to the DNA lab, to the chemistry lab. It was a seriously impressive set up and an absolutely amazing experience for me to have a one-on-one tour. Many thanks to the laboratory for allowing me to visit. 

The afternoon was spent having another behind the scene tour, this time at the Universities basketball stadium, as well as the glorious main library on campus. The students are very spoilt having such an amazing place to study! We also headed over to the anthropology lab where Captain Rose spends a lot of time. As well as working full time for the police, he managed to study for his undergraduate and masters degree in anthropology and has recently started his PhD studies. I find this extremely inspirational for someone who works such long hours in a highly demanding and challenging job. Hats off to you Dave!

We paid a visit to the Chemistry building to see who was about and managed to have a brief chat with some analytical research students as well as Professor Susan Olesik. A quick ten minute chat with Professor Olesik led to me delightfully discovering that they have a Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART - see next blog for more details) instrument heading their way this year as well as a very active entomology department. I hope to be in more contact with Susan in the future for some potential post doc opportunities, as she urged me to consider coming to Ohio State University! She sold it very well!

To wrap off a wonderful and productive day, I joined Dave and his lovely wife, Missy, for dinner. 

I would like to thank Dave for hosting me for the day. It was really enjoyable and if all goes well, I maybe seeing more of him in the future if funding becomes available for post doc opportunities at this impressive University. 

           Ohio State University Football Stadium

                                           One of the study rooms inside the library

                                                                                                                                     The beautiful building that homes the library

Fourth visit - Dayton University, Ohio

My fourth visit (July 30th to August 2nd) was at Dayton University to spend some time with assistant professor, Dr Eric Benbow and his research group. Dr Benbow has a broad range of research interests ranging from aquatic ecosystems to ecological communities and forensic entomology. His research team is very active and keen and an absolute pleasure to be around, like many of the students I have met in the USA.  I am always overwhelmed by the passion they have for their research.

My time with Dr Benbow was spent going over some statistics as he and his post doctorate associate, Dr Jen Pechal, excel in this area. I was also able to do some more hydrocarbon extractions of species of blowfly commonly found on decomposing remains in this region. The team had a scavenging experiment currently running whilst I was there, and I was lucky enough to go to the field one evening to see the laid out pigs. The maggot masses were in full swing, which I found very interesting (big thanks to Jamie Alfieri for letting me tag along!) I was also able to collect my own pupae from the ground around the pigs...something I have never had chance to do in the UK, so again, this was a great experience for me.

Time was also spent planning future experiments which will hopefully lead to a publication. I certainly hope to collaborate more with this group as they have some amazing ideas and I feel I could really learn a lot from them. We even managed to fit in a visit to the National Museum of the US Airforce which was great fun!!

In the evenings, we went to a baseball game, played some pool and Dr Benbow enjoyed some karaoke and dancing (nothing new there!!)

It was fantastic to spend time at Dayton University and once again I cannot speak highly enough about this fantastic research group, who's work is seriously impressive and I look forward to having a great working relationship with them in the future.

Third visit - Michigan State University

I arrived in East Lansing in the early hours of the morning on 23rd July. Having had no time to recover from Vegas, I was picked up by forensic chemist, Dr Ruth Smith on Monday morning. We spent the next day and a half looking at statistical techniques, in particular, Principal Component Analysis. I also got shown around the highly impressive Mass Spectrometry unit at the University, which is considerably better equipped than most institutes I have visited.

The afternoon of 24th July was spent with Dr Richard Merritt, who was the main reason I wanted to visit MSU. He is one of the most experienced and renowned aquatic entomologist, who is also very well known in the field of forensic entomology, and has worked on many cases over the years. I was also fortunate enough to spend a morning with Dr Foran, a forensic biologist at MSU who has a very busy lab of enthusiastic masters students.

Over the course of the week, I was shown around the wonderfully large campus of MSU, went over some case work with Dr Merritt (something I cannot do in the UK, as students do not get access to casework), visited the MSU arab breeding farm, had great food with Rich and his lovely wife and watched some baseball!

Dr Merritt

One of many arabs we saw at the breeding facility on campus

Baseball - Lugnuts vs the Hotrods!

My time spent with Dr Merritt, Dr Smith and Dr Foran seemed to fly by all too quickly, but I took as much as I could from each one of them as they are all very knowledgeable in their own areas. I was honoured to spend time in their company.