The Molecular lab team

Ranbir Bailey

Lab Manager

Ranbir’s primary focus is lab operations (facility management, health & safety, user support), but she also carries out research on NHM collections. She obtained a BSc in Biomedical Science & MSc in Biomedical Research from King’s College London, starting her career working on the genetics of breast cancer at the Ludwig Institute, UCL. She later worked on the development of clinical grade lentiviral vectors to target cancer at UCL’s Division of Infection & Immunity, before moving into divisional lab management.

Piotr Cuber

Molecular Biologist (implementation)

Piotr's current role involves automation of lab protocols and processes for high-throughput sequencing projects. He joined the Molecular Biology Lab in August 2020,developing a new method for characterization of air-borne pathogens with the application of next-generation sequencing through the DARPA AirSeq project. He then focussed on development and optimization of DNA barcoding methods for the DToL project. Piotr has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences, his thesis investigated ticks and tick-borne pathogens. He continued his work with various invertebrates at the University of Gdansk, then at the Pirbright Institute where he worked on mosquito gene drive systems.

Marylka Griffiths

Sequencing Technician

Marylka has a Masters by Research from the University of Nottingham where she investigated the population structure of coral reef fish under extreme environmental conditions in the Arabian Peninsula. She has worked in a forensics lab contributing to DNA profiling for criminal investigation. As a technologist in an NHS diagnostics lab, she carried out NGS library preparations, sanger sequencing and ddPCRs. She now supports the sequencing team and assists in lab operations.

Yuen Ting Chan

Senior Research Assistant (Robotics)

Yuen started her career in forensics, working with a wide range of police exhibits from every type of fixed and preserved tissue, faeces, urine, bone and teeth. She transitioned to research and implementation of services; working atUKHAS to implement one of the first fully automated NGS services for Illumina technology in the UK. She also worked on HIV and Hepatitis C, looking at Whole Genome Sequencing directly from Clinical Samples, now one of the first UKAS accredited RNA WGS Clinical Service in the UK. Her role at the museum is to automate sequencing techniques to provide a more flexible service and give researchers opportunities to bring their research into next generation sequencing.

Elena Lugli

Research Assistant

Elena has been part of the Team since 2015 working in both lab operations & research. She has a degree in biochemistry and a DPhil in fungal pathogens from the University of Oxford, continuing her academic career at New York University’s medical centre & the Kennedy Institute, University of Oxford. While at the museum she has worked on an incredible range of diverse species, though parasites and pathogens remain her favourites.

Andie Hall

Research Assistant

Andie has worked in Molecular labs at the NHM since 2004, first in Entomology, then Zoology. With a BSc in Zoology & MSc in wildlife management from the University of Reading, she began her career in R&D of pharmaceuticals. Andie’s focus is on HTS (Illumina & nanopore) for researchers, students & commercial projects. She works on all sample types from environmental to tissue, eukaryote & prokaryote, though specialises in insects.

Claire Griffin

Sequencing Assistant

With an BSc Honours Degree in Applied Biology, Claire came to the Museum in 1999 after working in Pathology & Oncology at Charing Cross Hospital. She is the Senior Sanger Sequencing Technician, specialising in DNA extraction from difficult or degraded material. She is a key figure in the operation and management of high throughput pipelines, undertaking frequent commercial projects. Claire liaises closely with staff and students- providing support and training in various technologies and techniques.

Divya Annathurai

Molecular Biology Assistant

Divya graduated with a first class degree in Genetics from the University of Manchester. She has previous experience working as a student scientist in molecular diagnostics, where she trained in next generation sequencing and qPCR. Here at NHM, she will be assisting in labwork and maintenance of the molecular labs, as well as working on R&D projects.

Silvia Salatino

Computational Biologist

Silvia’s primary focus is developing computational pipelines to analyse sequencing data from several applications, including DNA metabarcoding, functional transcriptomics, and de novo assemblies. Before joining the NHM, she earned a PhD in Bioinformatics in Switzerland and spent five years working at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford.

Molecular lab selected publications

Facilitating high throughput collections-based genomics: a comparison of DNA extraction and library building methods. (2025). Marsh, W., Hall, A., Barnes, I., Price, B. Sci Rep 15, 6013. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88443-0

A Snakemake Toolkit for the Batch Assembly, Annotation and Phylogenetic Analysis of Mitochondrial Genomes and Ribosomal Genes From Genome Skims of Museum Collections (2025) White OW, Hall A, Price BW, Williams ST, Clark MD. Molecular Ecology Resources 25(1)

Darwin Tree of Life Consortium. A DNA barcoding framework for taxonomic verification in the Darwin Tree of Life Project. (2024). Alex D. Twyford, Jordan Beasley , Ian Barnes, Heather Allen, Freja Azzopardi , David Bell , Mark L. Blaxter , Gavin Broad, Lucia Campos-Dominguez, Darren Choonea, Liam Crowley, Piotr Cuber, Michael Cunliffe, Alexandra Dombrowski, Brian Douglas, Laura L. Forrest , Ester Gaya , Clementine Greeves , Claire Griffin, Joanna Harley, Michelle L. Hart, Peter W.H. Holland, Peter M. Hollingsworth, Inez Januszczak , Amanda Jones, Paul Kersey, Estelle Kilias, Mara K.N. Lawniczak , Owen T. Lewis , Sahr Mian, Alice Minotto , Raju Misra, Peter O. Mulhair, Lyndall Pereira da Conceicoa , Ben W. Price , Silvia Salatino, Felix Shaw, Olga Sivell , Laura Sivess, Rebekka Uhl, Kieran Woof, Wellcome Open Research 2024, 9:339. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.21143.1

Refining the Schistosoma haematobium recombinase polymerase amplification (Sh-RPA) assay: moving towards point-of-care use in endemic settings (2024). Owain Donnelly, Silvia Mesquita, John Archer, Said M. Ali, Zikmund Bartonicek, Elena B. Lugli & Bonnie L. Webster. Parasites Vectors 17, 321. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-024-06380-9

Exome capture of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) for cost effective genotyping and population genetics with historical collections (2024). Oliver W. White, Sarah Walkington, Hugh Carter, Lauren Hughes, Melody Clark, Thomas Mock, Geraint A. Tarling, Matthew D. Clark. Mol Ecol Resour https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.14022 First published: 13 September 2024

CD62L-selected umbilical cord blood universal CAR T cells (2024). Christos Georgiadis, Lauren Nickolay, Farhatullah Syed, Hong Zhan, Soragia Athina Gkazi, Annie Etuk, Ulrike Abramowski-Mock, Roland Preece, Piotr Cuber, Stuart Adams, Giorgio Ottaviano and Waseem Qasim. bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.18.576145

Two new sympatric species of the pirate spider genus Ero C.L. Koch, 1836 from the cloud forest of Saint Helena Island,South Atlantic Ocean (Araneae: Mimetidae) (2024) Danniella Sherwood, Arnaud Henrard, Martina Peters, Benjamin W. Price,AndieC. HALL,Oliver W. White, Virginie Grignet & Vicky Wilkins. European Journal of Taxonomy 921: 76–97 doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2024.921.2417

The biogeography of Gabonese savannas: Evidence from termite community richness and composition (2023). Fidèle Evouna Ondo, Kathryn J. Jeffery, Robin Whytock, Katharine A. Abernethy, Pierre Couteron, Paul Eggleton, Claire Griffin, Nicolas J. Ostle, Aurelie-Flore, Koumba Pambo, Alfred Ngomanda, Josué Edzang Ndong, Catherine L. Parr. Journal of Biogeography. 2023;50:1505–1518.DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14671

Tachystola mulliganae sp.nov. (lep.:Oecophoridae) a western Australian species adventive in west London (2023). Mark J Sterling, Colin W Plant, Ben W Price, Piotr Cuber, Andie Hall, Jordan Beasley and David Lees. Entomologist’s Rec.J.Var. 135 (2023) 225.

Sequencing Analysis of MUC6 and MUC16 Gene Fragments in Patients with Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Reveals Novel Mutations: A Preliminary Study. Gaździcka J, Biernacki K, Salatino S, Gołąbek K, Hudy D, Świętek A, Miśkiewicz-Orczyk K, Koniewska A, Misiołek M, Strzelczyk JK. Current Issues in Molecular Biology. 2023; 45(7):5645-5661. https://doi.org/10.3390/cimb45070356

Ooencyrtus pitosina (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae)–A natural enemy of Samoan swallowtail butterfly Papilio godeffroyi (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Polaszek A, Noyes JS, Lugli EB, Schmaedick MA, Peck RW, Banko PC, et al. PLoS ONE 18(8): e0288306. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288306

Inferring the ecological and evolutionary determinants of community genetic diversity. (2023).Isaac Overcast, Víctor Noguerales, Emmanouil Meramveliotakis, Carmelo Andújar, Paula Arribas, Thomas J. Creedy, Brent C. Emerson, Alfried P. Vogler, Anna Papadopoulou, Hélène Morlon. Molecular Ecology. 2023;00:1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16958

CRISPR-assisted test for Schistosoma haematobium. (2023). Dounia Cherkaoui, Silvia G. Mesquita, Da Huang, Elena B. Lugli, Bonnie L. Webster & Rachel A. McKendry. March 2023 Scientific Reports 13(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31238-y

Comparing the accuracy and efficiency of third generation sequencing technologies, Oxford Nanopore Technol-ogies, and Pacific Biosciences, for DNA barcode sequencing applications (2023). Piotr Cuber , Darren Chooneea , Clementine Geeves , Silvia Salatino Thomas J. Creedy , Claire Griffin , Laura Sivess, Ian Barnes, Ben Price, Raju Misra . Ecological Genetics and Genomics 28 (2023) 100181 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egg.2023.100181

Development of real-time and lateral flow recombinase polymerase amplification assays for rapid detection of Schistosoma mansoni (2022). Mesquita Silvia Gonçalves, Lugli Elena Birgitta, Matera Giovanni, Fonseca Cristina Toscano, Caldeira Roberta Lima, Webster Bonnie. Front. Microbiol., 18 November 2022 Sec. Infectious Agents and Disease Volume 13 - 2022https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1043596

Evaluation of genome skimming to detect and characterise human and livestock helminths (2023). Marina Papaiakovou, Natalia Fraija-Fernández , Katherine James, Andrew G. Briscoe, Andie Hall, Timothy P. Jenkins, Julia Dunn, Bruno Levecke, Zeleke Mekonnen, Piet Cools, Stephen R. Doyle, Cinzia Cantacessi, D.T.J. Littlewood.International Journal for Parasitology. Article in Press. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2022.12.002

Air pollution induces Staphylococcus aureus USA300 respiratory tract colonization mediated by specific bacterial genetic responses involving the global virulence gene regulators Agr and Sae. (2022)Jo Purves, Shane J. K. Hussey, Louise Corscadden, Lillie Purser, Andie Hall, Raju Misra, Liza Selley, Paul S. Monks, Julian M. Ketley, Peter W. Andrew and Julie A. Morrissey. Environmental Microbiology 00(00), 00–00 doi:10.1111/1462-2920.16076.

Unprecedented frequency of mitochondrial introns in colonial bilaterians. (2022) Helen Louise Jenkins, Rachael Graham, Joanne Sara Porter, Leandro Manzoni Vieira, Ana Carolina Sousa de Almeida, Andie Hall, Aaron O’Dea, Simon Edward Coppard &Andrea Waeschenbach . Sci Rep 12, 10889 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14477-3

Revision of the World Species of Megaphragma Timberlake (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) (2022). Polaszek A, Fusu L, Viggiani G, Hall A, Hanson P, Polilov AA. Insects. 13(6):561. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13060561

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Halting Sustainable Development in the Colca y Volcanes de Andagua UNESCO Global Geopark in Peru. (2022). Andrzej Gałaś , Roya Elaine Haghighat-Khah, Piotr Cuber , Melvin Benavente , Denise Gorfinkiel and Slávka Gałaś. Prospects and Future Sustainability 14, 4043 https://doi.org/10.3390/su14074043

Diversity and Phylogeny of Novel Cord-Forming Fungi from Borneo. (2022). Foster, R.; Hartikainen, H.; Hall, A.; Bass, D.Microorganisms 10, 239. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10020239

Comparative Genomics Analysis Demonstrated a Link Between Staphylococci Isolated from Different Sources: A Possible Public Health Risk. (2021). Cave, R., Misra, R., Chen, J., Wang, S. and Mkrtchyan, H.V. Frontiers in Microbiology (12)257 DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2021.576696

DEFRA Centre of Excellence for DNA Methods: Evaluation of DNA barcode libraries used in the UK and developing an action plan to fill priority gaps. Natural England Joint Publication JP035. (2020). Ben Price, Andy Briscoe, Raju Misra and Gavin Broad https://nhm.openrepository.com/handle/10141/622857

The levels of sICAM-1, sELAM-1, TNFα and sTNFR1 proteins in patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma in tumor and corresponding normal mucosa (2020).Joanna Katarzyna Strzelczyk, Piotr Cuber, Benjamin Bochon, Krzysztof Gajdzik, Janusz Strzelczyk, Łukasz Krakowczyk, Andrzej Wiczkowski, Aleksander Jerzy Owczarek and Zofia Ostrowska. Acta Biochimica Polonica Epub: No 5449. Vol. 67. https://doi.org/10.18388/abp.2020_5449

Mitochondrial and plastid genome variability of Corallina officinalis (Corallinales, Rhodophyta) (2020) Chris Yesson, Xueni Bian, Christopher Williamson, Andrew G Briscoe & Juliet Brodie Applied Phycology, 1:1, 73-9,DOI: 10.1080/26388081.2020.1827940

Treatments for Lipid Oxidation in Taxidermy and Impact on DNA Recovery (2020) Lu Allington-Jones & Ranbir Bailey Studies in conservation. DOI: 10.1080/00393630.2020.1855858

Development of a Molecular Snail Xeno-monitoring Assay to Detect Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma bovis Infections in their Bulinus Snail Hosts. 2020. Tom Pennance, John Archer, Elena Birgitta Lugli, Penny Rostron ,Felix Llanwarne, Said Mohammed Ali, Amour Khamis Amour,Khamis Rashid Suleiman, Sarah Li , David Rollinson, Jo Cable, Stefanie Knopp, Fiona Allan, Shaali Makame Ameand Bonnie Lee Webster. Molecules 2020, 25, 4011; doi:10.3390/molecules25174011

Metabarcoding unsorted kick-samples facilitates macroinvertebrate-based biomonitoring with increased taxonomic resolution, while outperforming environmental DNA (2020) Lyndall Pereira-da-Conceicoa, Vasco Elbrecht, Andie Hall, Andrew Briscoe,Helen Barber-James, Benjamin Price. Environmental DNA. 2020;00:1–19. DOI: 10.1002/edn3.116

The first mitochondrial genomes of endosymbiotic rhabdocoels illustrate evolutionary relaxation of atp8 and genome plasticity in flatworms (2020). Marlies Monnens, SofieThijs, Andrew G Briscoe et al. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules Volume 162, 1 November 2020, Pages 454- 469. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.06.025

Polaszek A, Noyes JS, Russell S, Ramadan MM (2020) Metaphycus macadamiae (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) – a biological control agent of macadamia felted coccid Acanthococcus ironsidei (Hemiptera: Eriococcidae) in Hawaii. PLoSONE 15(4):e0230944. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230944

The increased sensitivity of qPCR in comparison to Kato-Katz is required for the accurate assessment of the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth infection in settings that have received multiple rounds of mass drug administration. Dunn, JC. Papaiakovou, M. Thwe Han, K. Chooneea, D…Misra, R. et al. Parasites & Vectors volume 13, Article number: 324 (2020) doi: 10.1186/s13071-020-04197-w

Deep-Sea anthropogenic macrodebris harbours rich and diverse communities of bacteria and archaea. (2018) Woodall, L.C., Jungblut, A.D., Hopkins, K., Hall. A., Robinson, L.F., Gwinnett, C., Paterson, G.L.J. Plos One. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206220