Sara Goodacre | |
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Born | Sara L. Goodacre |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA) University of Nottingham (PhD) |
Known for | SpiderLab |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Evolutionary genetics Population genetics Conservation genetics Arachnology |
Institutions | University of East Anglia University of Nottingham University of Oxford |
Thesis | Studies on the evolution of Partula (1999) |
Website | arachnotts |
Sara L. Goodacre is a research geneticist and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Genetics at the University of Nottingham. [1] [2] She is the lead for the Open Air Laboratories, [3] [ Link to precise page ] a citizen science project that engages people with the outdoor environment and Deputy Director of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Doctoral Training Programme. [4]
Goodacre studied the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge as a student of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1995. [5] Goodacre joined the University of Nottingham for her graduate studies and earned her PhD in 1999 for studies on the evolution of Partula land snails. [6] [5]
Goodacre joined the University of Oxford [7] as a research fellow in 1999. [5] She was a research fellow at the University of East Anglia from 2002. She was described by the BBC as Spider Woman. [8] As of 2018 [update] , Goodacre is based at the University of Nottingham, where she founded the SpiderLab in 2007 and leads the ArachNotts research group. [1] [9] As a geneticist, Goodacre studies the evolution, population and conservation of spiders. [2] She monitored the mating behaviour and sex ratio of the linyphiid spider Pityohyphantes phrygianus with Bengt Gunnarsson at the University of Gothenburg. [1] [10] She also studied the silk of Mygalomorphae spiders and the genetic diversity of spider silk genes [11] [1] and found evidence for antimicrobial activity in the silk of common house spiders. [12] She found that Erigone atra , a pest controlling spider, uses long-distance airborne dispersal. [13] Goodacre contributed to the 2011 book Spider Physiology and Behaviour: Physiology. [14] In 2015 Goodacre reported that spiders could survive "sailing" across oceans. [15]
ArachNotts study the diving bell spider and its silk, which it uses to build a diving bell in which it stores air underwater, and have so far identified some of the silk genes used by this spider. [16] [11] They also work on the relationship between spiders and the microbes that they carry with them, including the mating behaviour and sex-ratio of offspring, the ecology and biological control potential of spiders in agriculture and the use of genetic tools in the conservation of the endangered raft spider. [16]
Goodacre worked alongside chemists at the University of Nottingham to create functionalised spider silk that could be used for drug delivery, wound healing and regenerative medicine. [17] [18] [19] [20] This involved attaching fluorescent dyes and antibiotics by click chemistry to silk synthesised by Escherichia coli . [17] [21] [22] The intention is this synthetic silk can slowly deliver antibiotics or be used as a scaffold to grow new tissues. [23] She has patented the synthesised silk (functionalised spidroin). [24]
Goodacre created the app Spider in da House. [25] She works to make people to be less frightened of spiders, as well as engaging the public in improving the UK's biodiversity. [26] [27] In June 2017, Goodacre took the SpiderLab to a series of primary schools, working in partnership with the Zoological Society of London. [28] She appears regularly on the BBC. [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] She has contributed to The Conversation , The Guardian [34] [35] and serves as an editor of both PeerJ [36] and Heredity . [37]
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