Our Science Team
At the heart of our business is a science team that deliver consistently high-quality results for our clients.
At NatureMetrics we are always developing, evaluating and implementing new technologies, in addition to optimising and automating workflows to scale our business globally. We are driven by quality and innovation, which is reflected in our grant funded projects, academic collaborations, and our growing body of scientific publications.
Science Team
Dr Shyamali Roy - R&D Laboratory Technician
Role
Shyamali has over 7 years of experience in biology field and lab work in areas including plant pathology, ecology, and plant phylogenetics.
She is part of the Research and Development group; her role is primarily assisting in the development of in-field detection assays for important species.
Academia
Shyamali has a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Reading, titled: “Evaluating the impact of tree provenance, tree phenotype and emergent disease on microbial and insect populations in tree ecosystems”. She has an MSc in Conservation and Forest Protection from Imperial College London, and a BSc in Biological Sciences from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Significant Collaborations
During her PhD, Shyamali used metabarcoding to characterise the bacterial and fungal endophyte species associated with Oak (Quercus) trees and morphologically identified associated insect herbivore species. The effects of tree phenotype and the impact of a novel tree disease on these microbial and insect communities were studied. During her MSc research project, she explored the biology and classification of Pythium, a plant pathogen of horticultural plants.
Andrew Briscoe - Head of Science
Role
Andy is a molecular biologist with over 12 years of experience working in a research environment. He has a PhD in molecular systematics and joined NatureMetrics in 2021 from the Natural History Museum, London, where he was the research and development lead within the molecular biology laboratories. Andy is part of the Research & Development group within the Science team, exploring novel technologies and the application of existing methodologies to address new challenges for the study of eDNA and metabarcoding.
Academia
Andy held a post-doctoral position at Natural History Museum, London in Molecular Parasitology. He has a PhD in Molecular Systematics from Bangor University, an MSc in Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology from the University of Manchester, and a BSc in Zoology from the University of Liverpool.
Significant Collaborations
During his PhD Andy focused on the development of high throughput methods in mitochondrial genomics for studying the systematics of a diverse group of arthropods. His post-doctoral research continued to build on his mitogenomic expertise, with a strong focus on understanding the relationships and distributions of metazoan parasites and their associated vectors. More recently his research has been concentrated on developing methods in metabarcoding and the study of eDNA for characterising terrestrial invertebrate communities, monitoring of disease agents, and the detection of non-native invasive species (NNIs).
Dr Cuong Q. Tang (CT) - Lead Scientist
Role
CT is a molecular taxonomist with extensive experience in high throughput DNA techniques. CT has developed the molecular workflows for NatureMetrics’ key services and has played a role in driving the scientific operations and product innovation within the business.
CT has taken the lead role in commercialising services such as our fish metabarcoding, bat identification, and invasive mussel detection from the perspective of developing and validating the new tests and then implementing a commercially viable protocol. He has also worked to set up and continuously improve our IT systems to track and trace samples from receipt to results.
CT currently manages a growing team of research scientists and laboratory technicians who together develop new technologies and assays, which include the characterisation of bulk invertebrate traps, macroinvertebrates, invasive mussels, and crayfish.
One of his main duties is to maintain the high standard of services at NatureMetrics. CT plays an important role in communicating with clients, specifically instances requiring more technical input. Alongside the data team, CT currently plays an important role in client reporting.
Academia
DEFRA-funded postdoctoral research fellowship focused on developing protocols for DNA-based assessment of UK pollinator diversity (Taxonomic research fellowship, Natural History Museum, London: “Taxonomic fellowship to support the National Pollinator Strategy”); Research associate, Imperial College London: “Phylogenetically Informed Correlates of Monocotyledonous Plant Diversity”. PhD, Imperial College London: “The Consequences of Life without Sex: An Examination into Taxonomy and Evolution of the Anciently Asexual Bdelloid Rotifers”. MSci, Imperial College London: Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation.
Significant Collaborations
CT has extensive experience in high throughput DNA barcoding, metabarcoding and mitochondrial metagenomics.
Edward Good - Senior R&D Laboratory Technician
Role
Ed joined NatureMetrics in November of 2020 to help process client samples for DNA metabarcoding and other techniques.
Academia
MRes Ocean Science at the University of Southampton, supervised by Dr Marc Rius. Dissertation title: “Whole-community analyses reveal distinct deep-sea communities in canyon systems with different trawling pressure”. Ed analysed eDNA metabarcoding data from deep-sea canyons and found significant community divergence as a result of chronic fishing trawling. This is currently in preparation for publication.
Significant Collaborations
Ed was an intern at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in 2018. Here he collected water samples from local rivers for qPCR analysis to better understand ecological relationships between three key species (the native Rainbow trout and the invasive Striped bass and New Zealand mud snail). Ed has also helped to design novel primers for Angel sharks to aid in conservation work conducted by the Angel Shark Project in the Canary Isles.
Meri Anderson Senior R&D Laboratory Technician
About
Meri joined NatureMetrics at the start of 2020 as a laboratory technician. Her experience in assay development and the high throughput processes of the lab put her in a good place to be part of the R&D team. She now works on streamlining the product delivery lab processes and developing new assays. Recently she has finished developing and optimizing new assays for detecting invasive and native mussels, which will help with conservation efforts and monitoring of water bodies.
Academia
The University of Exeter, Masters by Research supervised by Dr Lena Wilfert. Title: “Parasite Insight: Apicystis bombi. Prevalence of the under-reported parasite Apicystis bombi across natural barriers and life stages in pollinator hosts.” She developed new specific primers for an under-researched bumblebee pathogen and found the pathogen had jumped hosts to honeybees. She developed her skills in Sanger Sequencing, assay development and processing large volumes of samples. She is now writing up this research to be published in a scientific journal.
Significant Collaborations
Meri joined us after a role where she was researching novel pollinator pathogens and the effects of pesticides on pollinators. She has recently completed collaborative work with NatureMetrics on a minION project which included ~1000 PCRs done to a hard deadline.
Dr Tiffany Jędrecka - R&D lead
Role
Tiffany is a research scientist with over 10 years experience using CRISPR and other cutting edge molecular biology tools to try and answer real world questions.
She is exploring novel technologies for rapid in-field detection of ecologically, economically, and pathogenically important species from environmental samples.
Academia
Tiffany has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and Biochemistry from the Australian National University for work focusing on using CRISPR/Cas9 and other molecular biology tools to study viruses and how they interact with their mammalian hosts. She also has a Bachelor of Medical Science (with Honours) from the Australian National University.
Significant Collaborations
During her PhD, Tiffany helped pioneer the use of cutting edge CRISPR technologies to study large DNA viruses, working with research groups and industry around the world to adopt these methods. More recently, her research has used CRISPR technologies to study how viruses interact with their mosquito vectors, and how this drives the spread of viruses, particularly into new environments.
Dr Natalia Ivanova - Head of Science – North America
Role
Nataly is a molecular biologist with over 20 years of research experience, mostly devoted to development of high-throughput automated workflows, and she is part of the Research & Development group within the NatureMetrics Science team. Nataly oversees R&D and Product Development and will be leading automation in Canada and UK. She is also responsible for validation of new SOPs, quality control and product standardization between UK and Canada.
Academia
Nataly has a PhD in molecular biology from Moscow Lomonosov State University. Her PhD focused on molecular phylogeny of the lichen family Umbilicariaceae and group I introns. Part of her PhD work was done at the Natural Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Significant Collaborations
Since 2004, Nataly has dedicated sixteen years to the Barcode of Life Project at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph, creating cost-saving solutions and laboratory automation workflows for processing more than 1M specimens a year via Sanger sequencing, metabarcoding and SMRT-sequencing pipelines. She is familiar with multiple HTS platforms, including Ion Torrent, Illumina and PacBio. In 2020 Nataly contributed to the development of a digital lateral flow platform. Nataly also contributed to the development and design of a new lab space, formerly owned by Precision Biomonitoring, and now the acting lab facilities for NatureMetrics in North America. Nataly’s past collaborations encompass development of validated protocols for regulatory science with the US Food and Drug Administration, monitoring and accessing harmful algal blooms in Great Lakes with Environment and Climate Change Canada, biomonitoring of vertebrates using eDNA in tropical lake Bacalar with ECOSUR, Mexico and the Global Spore Sampling Project with University of Helsinki, Finland.
Dr May (Guiying) Mei - Senior Research Scientist
Role
May is a research scientist with extensive experience in microbiology and molecular biology. One of her roles at NatureMetrics, in North America, is to work with the head of science to ensure that all products in Canada/UK can be delivered to SOPs and the product is validated side by side with UK testing where required. As a “queen of assay development”, she will maintain that crown and continue developing new assays. At the same time, she will support product delivery in both qPCR testing and metabarcoding. On top of those, May has a keen interest in developing CRISPR detecting methods and other methods development at NatureMetrics.
Academia
May has a PhD in Plant Pathology from China Agricultural University, where she worked on plant diseases biocontrol using Quorum Quenching system. During her PhD study, May received the award of 2-year visiting graduate scholarship in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research institute. At AAFC, she worked on the interactions of prebiotics and probiotics, and the impact of probiotics on the productions of inflammatory factors. After graduating, May completed 3 years of postdoc research at the same lab of AAFC funded by NSERC. At that time, she was working on human pathogens Shiga-like toxin Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 and other serotypes, to demonstrate the effect of stress factors on the survival, biofilm production and toxic gene expressions of the STEC. May completed a further 2 years of postdoc research at the environmental lab of University of Guelph where she had the opportunity to work on the CRISPR system.
Significant Collaborations
In her former role, May successfully delivered big projects and developed large numbers of assays within a short period, alongside the growth of the company. May went beyond the science, and acted as a procurement where she managed the spending of $5 million within 1 month to build the lab and facilitate smooth progress of the COVID testing war. She brings these skills to her current role at NatureMetrics in North America.
Dr Molly Williams - qPCR Product Developer
Role
Molly joined NatureMetrics in 2022, less than 2 weeks after her PhD graduation. Her role as qPCR Product Developer primarily involves the optimisation, validation and implementation of qPCR workflows for ecologically important species. Additionally, she will work with the R&D team to explore novel methods for eDNA detection.
Academia
Molly was awarded a PhD in Molecular Ecology from Dublin City University, for her work focusing on the development of a novel biosensor for single species identification using eDNA. She also has an MSc in Forensic Science from King’s College London and a BSc in Biological Science from The University of Warwick.
Significant Collaborations
During her PhD, Molly was the first to adapt isothermal CRISPR-Cas diagnostics to environmental DNA monitoring. She initially developed this lab-based method for Atlantic salmon monitoring in the west of Ireland but has subsequently validated this assay in Canadian freshwater and progressed it further, towards in-field monitoring, using lateral flow and portable fluorometry.
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