Dr Alice Pyne
Research Area Lead: Imaging & Characterisation
Alice is a Senior Lecturer in Polymers & Soft Matter and head of the Henry Royce Nanocharacterisation laboratory. Her research focusses on developing high-resolution Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) imaging methods for structural characterisation of biomolecules in solution. She has pioneered single-molecule imaging studies of the DNA double helix, including unique time-resolved imaging at the atomic scale, showing DNA molecules twisting and “dancing” in ways that had not previously been imaged. Alice has a keen interest in bioimage analysis, and has developed an automated image analysis pipeline, TopoStats, that combines AFM image correction, molecule identification, and tracing into a single tool.
Prior to moving to Sheffield, Alice completed an EngD in Biophysics at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL and was awarded two postdoctoral fellowships during which she established a track record in high resolution biomolecular AFM.
