Naomi Murphy

Biography

My final year project during my degree in natural sciences involved a model neuron. I was hooked – to learn more about solving problems with code, I went into industry. As a data consultant, I learned Python and software engineering best practices, and was exposed to a range of problems and very different teams. A core part of my role was to consider what a dataset could offer in answering a particular question and developing tools to transform or enrich it to make it more useful. I realised I would rather be doing this in the context of my original academic interests, biology and disease, so took a sabbatical year to pursue a master’s in Bioinformatics. At the Institute of Genetics and Cancer in Edinburgh, I used single-cell RNA-seq data to explore the transition between inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. This confirmed I wanted to apply my skills omics-related research. I have now started my PhD in the Saez-Rodriguez group, and plan to be an active participant in the group’s culture of collaboration and methods development.

Research Interests

We understand surprisingly little about the healthy human body, let alone the mechanisms underlying disease. I find this both daunting and exciting – there’s so much to discover, and a breakthrough could transform patients’ lives. My interests lie in how spatial context, different modalities, and multi-omics can elucidate homeostasis and disease processes. I am particularly interested in the use of spatial multi-omics to explore host-microbiome interactions in the gut. This will be a focal points of my PhD as a member of theCartoHostBug project(ERC-funded, grant agreement ID 101118531).

Professional Career

Education

Contact Information