Dr Nicole Müller-Sienerth

Nicole has recently moved into the Bespoke Team within DNA Pipelines. She is looking after samples submitted by Faculty groups for sequencing library prep which cannot be handled within the standard pipeline provided by the high throughput teams. In her previous role she was responsible for several laboratory managing duties, including acting as local coordinator, supervising new starters, PhD students and contractors as well as ordering consumables and looking after equipment. Her scientific work within the lab was split between her own research project, identifying binding partners for extracellular proteins, and providing recombinant proteins for collaborators within the Sanger Institute and outside.

Staff Scientist

In my previous role as Gavin Wright’s lab manager I was responsible for the smooth running of the lab, including ordering consumables and equipment, initiating repairs, maintenance and servicing, performing local co-ordinator duties regarding Health and Safety, Permit to Work, Risk Assessments, New Starter Induction into CL2 and and their supervision. My projects involved cloning of soluble recombinant Fusion proteins, expression in mammalian cells and purification. I wanted to finding yet unknown binding partners to different types of extracellular proteins expressed on human platelets, the Malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum etc.

The aim of my previouse project in this lab was to generate a panel of recombinant monoclonal antibodies against a library of Zebrafish cell surface proteins. This involved the expression and purification of extracellular domains of Zebrafish proteins, immunisation and hybridoma fusion, screening and cloning of recombinant monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies were validated via ELISA and immunohistology and made publicly available as plasmids on Addgene.

Currently I am part of DNA Pipelines’ Short Read team, responsible for generating ready-to-sequence libraries from DNA and RNA samples in low to medium throughput custom processes which result in high quality sequencing data.

My timeline

• Staff Scientist - Bespoke Team, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK

• Laboratory Manager - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK

• maternity leave

• Advanced Research Assistant - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK: Generation of recombinant monoclonal antibodies against a library of Zebrafish cell surface proteins

• maternity leave

• PostDoc - University of Wuerzburg, Germany: Research in the field of Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) ligands and receptors

• PhD in Biology - University of Wuerzburg, Germany: Dissertation title: ”Development of antigen-dependent activatable TNF ligand fusion proteins“

• Master of Science (“Diplom”) in Biology - University of Hohenheim, Germany: Master Thesis (“Diplomarbeit”): “Expression, purification and molecular interaction of a cytoplasmic fragment from the receptor CD44 with Merlin”

• Working student - Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH, Frankfurt/Main, Germany: Bacterial expression, purification and analysis of recombinant proteins