Aquaculture
Aquaculture
The Roslin Institute
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Tim Regan [GL]

Career Track Fellow

Tim Regan

Current Research

My lab is concerned with exploring immune systems of invertebrate aquaculture species in the context of industry relevant diseases. This includes interactions with host-associated microbiomes, environmental stressors and environmental microbiota.

In the foreseeable future, much of this work will focus on how host genetics and environmental stressors affect blue mussel immunology using a whole range of molecular biology and –omics technologies.

 

Favourite aquaculture species  

Mussels!

 

Background

My PhD was on innate immune mediated inflammation regulation in the human gastrointestinal tract. This involved siRNA screening, infection assays and many molecular biology techniques. Attracted by the One Health ethos of the Roslin Institute, I moved here in 2014 to begin a postdoc with a Systems Biology group (Professor Tom Freeman's group). Here, I learned bioinformatics and network graphing skills studying macrophage transcriptomics and honey bee metagenomics. Since then, I have worked with Genome-scale CRISPR Knock-Out (GeCKO) screening to study host susceptibility/resistance genes (Dr Kenneth Baillie's group). After discovering the wonders of aquaculture, I joined Tim Bean’s lab in 2019 working with government and industry stakeholders to improve bivalve culture in the UK. In 2023, I was awarded a Career Track Fellowship at Roslin to build my own research group investigating invertebrate aquaculture species immunology in the context of industry-relevant challenges.

  • [2005 – 2009]       Undergraduate (Biochemistry with Immunology, Trinity College Dublin)
  • [2009 – 2014]       PhD (Inflammatory Homeostasis in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract, University College Cork)
  • [2014 – 2016]       Postdoctoral researcher (Immunopsychiatry, The Roslin Institute)
  • [2016]                     Postdoctoral researcher (Honey bee metagenomics, The Roslin Institute)
  • [2016 – 2019]       Postdoctoral researcher (Genome-scale CRISPR Knock Out (GeCKO) screening, The Roslin Institute)
  • [2019 - 2023]        Core scientist (Bivalve research, The Roslin Institute)
  • [2023 – present] Career Track Fellow (The Roslin Institute)

Interests, hopes and dreams

I love music, the outdoors, and water-based activities (surfing, rowing, snorkelling, paddle boarding, kayaking). Inflammatory regulation nerd and lover of cool microscopy.

 

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