Vicki Cronin was awarded her BSc. in Biochemistry from the University of Bath in 2013. She spent the penultimate year of her degree on industrial placement at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado. During this time she conducted a research project with Dr Michael Marks and Professor Robert Spencer, investigating the potential role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in regulating response to restraint stress. Vicki completed her final year undergraduate project on carbohydrate degrading enzymes for use in bioethanol production, under the supervision of Professor Michael Danson. The project involved the identification and characterisation of glycosidase hydrolases from Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius.
In September 2013, Vicki started her PhD with Professor Micklefield in the area of synthetic biochemistry; her current work is focused on developing methyltransferase enzymes to accept SAM analogues. Her project also involved a 3-month placement working in the Synthetic Biochemistry group at GSK in Stevenage, under the supervision of Dr Pete Sutton.
Vicki has experience in molecular biology, structure guided mutagenesis, protein expression and purification, enzyme kinetics, and analytical techniques (including HPLC, mass spectrometry and NMR).
Outside of the lab Vicki enjoys baking and is a keen distance runner and steeplechaser!
Publications
- Structure and Biocatalytic Scope of Coclaurine N-Methyltransferase. M. R. Bennett, M. L. Thompson, S. A. Shepherd, M. S. Dunstan, A. J. Herbert, D. R. M. Smith, V. A. Cronin, B. R. K. Menon, C. Levy & J. Micklefield Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018 in press. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201805060)
- Recent Advances in Methyltransferase Biocatalysis. M.R. Bennett, S.A. Shepherd, V.A. Cronin, J. Micklefield Current Opinion in Chemical Biology. 2017, in press.