Extensive DNA tests by experts at the University of Warwick on two deer carcasses found in Gloucestershire have not found any indication of a big cat presence. The National Trust asked the University to test a roe deer carcass found near Woodchester Park, Gloucestershire in early January after examination of the wounds led to speculation that it may have been killed by a big cat. Comprehensive DNA tests have found fox DNA on the Woodchester carcass and what is expected to be fox DNA on the second deer carcass found a few miles away.

Dr Robin Allaby, Associate Professor at the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, said: “We did not detect cat DNA on either deer carcass. Other than deer, by far the strongest genetic signal we found on the Woodchester Park carcass was from a fox. That fox DNA was found on the ribs, legs and fur plucking sites from the Woodchester deer carcass.”

The University of Warwick, in partnership with the University of Birmingham and the University of Leicester, has been chosen for an investment of approximately £4.5 million in postgraduate training in vital research areas such as food security, bio-energy and quantitative biology.

The Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership, led by the University of Warwick, will offer up to 90 four-year studentships over the next three academic years as a result of an award by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and match funding from the universities.

School of Life Sciences researchers Professor Chris Dowson and Dr David Roper have teamed up with Canadian scientists on a £2.2 million project to search for new antibiotics which will beat resistance in deadly “superbugs”. The University of Warwick is part of a transatlantic team funded by the Canada/UK Partnership on Antibiotic Resistance, a collaboration between the UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The four-year project will support high-quality research into alternatives to existing antibiotics whose effectiveness is being challenged by increasing resistance in bacteria such as E. coli and MRSA.

New DEFRA-funded research by Professor Bill Finch-Savage and Dr Steve Footitt in the School of Life Sciences sheds light on how hormones regulate the dormancy cycle of seeds in the soil using seeds of Arabidopsis.

GARNet/Egenis workshop 12-13 July 2012
Location: Innovation Centre, University of Exeter

Plant scientists are often required to donate data to open access databases (for instance, by the BBSRC data management policy). They are also encouraged to make use of these databases in order to boost their research and speed up discovery. It is not yet clear, however, whether and how these practices are affecting experimentation within the plant sciences, and whether data donation and use on a large scale has been effective in fostering innovative research. The focus of this workshop is to discuss issues surrounding data donation, publication and use from the viewpoint of plant biologists, with the aim to produce a series of recommendations about the problems involved in data dissemination in plant science, which could be used to inform funders/publishers’ policies.