The ESRs who are trained through MemTrain will leave the programme fully equipped to work in an intersectoral environment with the skills and abilities to accelerate the study of biological membranes in a range of areas of significant benefit to society. MemTrain will focus on developing:
Successful interdisciplinary and intersectoral training requires a diverse set of skills and experiences.
As such, MemTrain will draw on the expertise of the academic and industrial members to offer a broad range of practical and theoretical skills as well as those of a transferrable nature.
Due to the interdisciplinary and intersectoral nature of MemTrain, coupled to the mobility of the ESRs trained on the programme, the development and enhancement of transferrable skills is integral. It is essential that the next generation of researchers trained in MemTrain have the skills required in the evolving knowledge-based economy e.g. teamwork, communication, project management, intellectual property management, entrepreneurship etc.
| Title | Example content |
|---|---|
| MemTrain seminar series | Seminar series encompassing the entire scope of research within MemTrain delivered by internal and external speakers at a range of career stages. Provides a forum for discussion of interdisciplinary and intersectoral research |
| Health & Safety | Generic training provided by Aston University including a range of online training courses. Training in COSHH and risk assessment and individual training on an ad hoc basis by the research groups |
| Ethics | Research ethics and good research practice including responsible research and innovation |
| Working with membrane proteins | A 2-day workshop including both lectures and practical sessions. Covering the difficulties associated with handling membrane proteins and recently-developed methods to overcome this |
| LC-MS spectrometry analysis | A series of 6 lectures to introduce ESRs to the principles and basic practice of LC-MS for the analysis of lipids and proteins |
| Practical Lipidomics | A 1-week practical course on extraction and analysis of lipids by LC-MS |
| Practical Proteomics | A 1 week practical course on protein digestion methods, standard proteomics analysis by peptide sequencing using LC-MSMS, and corresponding data analysis |
| LC-MS spectrometry analysis | ThermoFisher will run a training event covering the latest developments in chromatography and mass spectrometer design, including imaging applications |
| Model lipid bilayers | A 1-week practical course on extraction and analysis of lipids by LC-MS |
| Quantitative Pharmacology | A series of 5 lectures Models of drug-receptor action, analysis of concentration-response curves, measurement of affinity and efficacy and ligand bias |
| Biotechnological processing | A series of 4 seminars on the expression of membrane proteins in a range of host systems, including a practical hands-on session using 2L bioreactors |