Paterson PhD student wins national best thesis prize
June 2007The Pontecorvo prize is awarded every year to the CR-UK-funded student judged to have submitted the best PhD thesis. This year, Aga Gambus will be one of the recipients of the award. The judging panel was unanimous in their praise for Aga's thesis.
Aga started her PhD in 2002 and spent four years working on DNA replication in Karim Labib's group, Paterson Institute. She found that a number of known DNA replication molecules form a complex, which most likely produces a driving element during the process of DNA replication, opening the DNA and pulling the replication machinery behind. Aga studied the stability of this Replisome Progression Complex as well as the timing of its assembly. She completed her thesis last year and has since moved to Dundee for her first post-doctoral position.
Working with Professor Julian Blow, she is now using Xenopus Laevis rather than budding yeast as a model organism, but remains in the DNA replication field.
Coming from Poland, Aga was one of the first international students at the Paterson and thoroughly enjoyed her time here. Aga said: "The Paterson is a great place to do a PhD - it's a friendly place with an active group of students organising social activities so there are a lot of opportunities to get to know new people. It is also brilliant from the scientific point of view. There is a wide spectrum of high quality science and very good facilities that make lab work much easier. I have made a lot of friends and will always remember my years in Manchester in the best way. The work that I have done during my PhD, and the experiences I gathered, greatly helped me to get my present job and to start off my scientific career."
Aga and will attend an awards ceremony at Cancer Research UK's Clare Hall Laboratories in Hertfordshire in September.
