Dr Joy Leng
About
Biography
Joy completed a bachelor's degree in Biology at the university of Manchester in 2010. She then went on to study for a master's degree in Advanced Sciences at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 2011. Her research project focused on the effect of rearing temperature on the adult size of Daphnia magna. After this she spent a short time working as a field assistant for the University of Liverpool collecting data for a study of the natural immunity of a wild population of bank voles and field mice in forests on the Wirral. Joy completed her PhD in 2015 studying the effect of equine grass sickness on horse gut bacteria and metabolism at the University of Reading. This project utilised proton nuclear magnetic spectroscopy (1H NMR) to profile biofluid metabolites and next generation sequencing to characterise faecal bacterial populations. During a number of Post-doctoral positions she developed a fermentation model of the equine hindgut, utilised a model of the chicken caeca to model transfer of anti-microbial resistant genes between isolates of Eschericia coli and linked the development of the horse gut microbiome in early life with health and performance in later life. Currently she is working on an Alborada Trust funded project to better understand the origins of the equine gut microbiome by collecting samples from both foal and mare. Further to this the project will utilise the fermentation model of the equine gut to simulate changes to the foal gut caused by antibiotics and aim to reduce these effects using mitigating strategies such as pro- and pre-biotics.
The common theme within all of the research Joy has completed has been microbiomes, whether this be of the gut, skin or fermentation models. Her main tool to analyse these microbiomes is 16S rRNA sequencing and she is proficient in using command line based programmes, QIIME2 and R to analyse and visualise sequencing data. Previously, she has done this by utilising external partners using the Illumina sequencing platform but more recently she has been using Oxford Nanopore Technology's MinION platform for rapid sequencing of both 16S rRNA amplicons and shotgun metagenomics.
Areas of specialism
My qualifications
ResearchResearch interests
Joy's main research interest is the animal gut microbiomes and how these are effected by disease, diet and drugs. She has also been involved in projects developing lab models of the chicken and horse gut to be able to study the bacterial communities that reside there without the need for animal models. She has used these models to study how the gut microbiome effects the presence of potential pathogens within the gut and also how it effects the transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes between bacteria. As well as utilising classical microbiology techniques within the lab she also uses the sequencing of bacterial DNA (16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomics) to study the bacterial population found within lab models of the gut models and those in faecal and gastrointestinal content samples from animals. She has also used proton nuclear magenetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyse animal biofluids to study the impact of the metabolism of the bacteria in the gut on the metabolism of the whole animal.
Research interests
Joy's main research interest is the animal gut microbiomes and how these are effected by disease, diet and drugs. She has also been involved in projects developing lab models of the chicken and horse gut to be able to study the bacterial communities that reside there without the need for animal models. She has used these models to study how the gut microbiome effects the presence of potential pathogens within the gut and also how it effects the transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes between bacteria. As well as utilising classical microbiology techniques within the lab she also uses the sequencing of bacterial DNA (16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomics) to study the bacterial population found within lab models of the gut models and those in faecal and gastrointestinal content samples from animals. She has also used proton nuclear magenetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyse animal biofluids to study the impact of the metabolism of the bacteria in the gut on the metabolism of the whole animal.