Rapid Diagnosis and Biomedical Research

Dr Andrew Taylor graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2003 with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Biology. Following this, he completed an MSc in Biosciences at the same institution (2004). During his PhD project, based at the University of Warwick’s Wellesbourne campus, he isolated and characterised the expression of key genes involved in the photoperiodic regulation of bulb initiation in onion. His PhD was awarded in 2009, following which he worked as a post-doc at the Wellesbourne campus (Warwick Crop Centre) for ten years. Andrew worked on several projects during this time, predominantly focussing on understanding and controlling fungal plant pathogens such as Fusarium and Sclerotinia. With the help of a fellowship from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, he became a specialist in molecular plant pathology and focussed on developing, testing and utilising molecular techniques (mainly PCR, qPCR and loop-mediated isothermal amplification) to identify, detect and quantify a range of plant pathogens.

Andrew joined Micropathology Ltd in December 2019 as a Postdoctoral Scientist in Virology.  Since then he has been involved in developing several new assays including in-house assays for SARS-CoV-2 and mpox.  He is also involved in the EU DIAMONDS project - Diagnosis and Management of Febrile Illness using RNA Personalised Molecular Signature Diagnosis.  This project involves an international team of researchers and scientists from 28 institutions and 13 countries.