Aidan Barry

MPhil Thesis: Identification & characterisation of luxury uptake proteins in Chlamydomonas for enhanced wastewater phosphorus removal

Supervisors: Dr James Doughty and Dr Tom Arnot

Aidan is currently an Area Scientist for Wessex Water.

He joined the EPSRC-funded WISE CDT in 2015, and took modules in the postgraduate school focusing on wastewater management and modelling.  He began his research project in August 2016 at the University of Bath, working to improve and develop the function of High-rate algal ponds (HRAPs) as an alternative to traditional nutrient removal processes in wastewater treatment. Aidan has continued research into the algal phosphorus starvation responses, with the goal of developing better tools for modelling algal growth and nutrient uptake.

Aidan graduated with an MPhil in 2022.  His research focused on “Manipulation and modelling of microalgae for enhanced wastewater nutrient removal”, following which he joined Thames Water as an Environmental Data Analyst.

Aidan’s academic background prior to joining the WISE CDT was a BSc Honours in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol. In this time he took modules in microbiology, molecular biology, and pharmacology, with a final year focus on synthetic biology and biotechnology techniques. His undergraduate project focused on the application of bioinformatics techniques to finding the interactions between epithelial proteins in the nematode C. elegans. The project required the design and production of a variety of transgenic E. coli strains containing composite plasmids for both transformation of the worms and RNA interference studies. He graduated in 2013 with a 2:1.

Outside work, Aidan is interested in rock climbing, board games, and occasionally running.