Biography
As an undergraduate student Kevin studied Applied Bioscience & Zoology at the University of the West of Scotland. There, he had the opportunity to complete his final year project on "The toxicity of potentially toxic elements (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn and Ni) to the cnidarian Hydra attenuata at environmentally relevant concentrations". On completion of his undergraduate studies he started a postgraduate Masters degree in Biotechnology at the the University of the West of Scotland. He completed his Masters research project in "Inadvertent compounds that may have a role in preventing or treating Acanthamoeba keratitis".
Kevin started as a PhD candidate at Edinburgh Napier University in October 2020. His main interest is in parasitic protists. The title of his PhD research project is "Developing gregarine apicomplexans as an aquatic symbiosis model system", with the supervisory team: S. Rueckert (DoS), N. Wheelhouse, and A. Tsaousis (University of Kent). The main aim of the project is to establish the foundations of an in-vitro axenic culture system for gregarines that is animal and tissue free. This system could provide the building blocks to further study the evolution of aquatic symbiosis within the gregarines and potentially the wider Apicomplexa.