Biography

Dr Alice L. B. Pyne is an UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She is head of the Royce Nanocharacterisation laboratory, where her research group is based. Her research combines high-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) and image analysis to determine how the structural and conformational heterogeneity in individual DNA molecules affect fundamental biological processes.

Alice received an MSci in Physics from the University of Bristol in 2009, an MRes in Molecular Modelling and Materials Science from UCL in 2011 and an EngD in biophysics from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, in 2015. Following these, she was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship, and an MRC Rutherford Innovation Fellowship, to establish an independent research programme in high resolution biomolecular AFM.

Throughout her career, Alice has worked closely with industry to develop novel AFM methods capable of routinely resolving the DNA double helix on individual molecules. She has pioneered these methods to achieve time-resolved imaging of DNA at the sub-molecular scale, showing DNA molecules twisting and “dancing” in ways that had not previously been accessible. 

Alice is spearheading an international effort to promote quantitative tools for analysis in AFM (www.github.com/AFM-SPM). She is building a community in the biosciences that adopts her high-resolution imaging methods, enabled by developing an automated image analysis pipeline TopoStats which combines molecular identification and conformation determination into a single tool. 

Academic Positions

  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Department of Materials Science, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

  • Senior Lecturer in Polymers & Soft Matter, Department of Materials Science, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

  • Lecturer in Polymers & Soft Matter, Department of Materials Science, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

  • Honorary Lecturer, London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, United Kingdom

  • MRC UKRI/Rutherford Fellow, London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, United Kingdom

  • Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate, London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, United Kingdom

  • EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow, London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, United Kingdom

  • Postdoctoral Research Associate, London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, United Kingdom

  • Research Assistant, The School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

  • Research Assistant, Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Funding

  • 2022: EPSRC DTP studentship

  • 2021: EPSRC Henry Royce Industry Collaboration Fund

  • 2021: 2x EPSRC DTP studentships

  • 2020: EPSRC Henry Royce Equipment grant

  • 2018: EPSRC DTP studentship

  • 2017: MRC/UKRI Innovation Fellowship

  • 2015: EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship

  • 2012: UCL Graduate School Travel Award

AWARDS

  • July 2019, Nucleic Acids Forum award: DNA

  • November 2017, MRC/UKRI Innovation Fellowship

  • July 2015, EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship

  • December 2014, Journal of Molecular Recognition Award, Best Oral Presentation at AFM Biomed

  • January 2014, Raleigh Medal, National Physical Laboratory

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Engineering (EngD), Biophysics, University College London, 2015.

  • Master of Research (MRes), Molecular Modelling and Materials Science, Distinction (Hons), University College London, 2011.

  • Master of Science (MSci), Physics, Upper Second Class (Hons), University of Bristol, 2009.