Alex Hunt named Scottish Microscopist of the Year

Alex Hunt, postdoctoral researcher in the Akram lab has been named Scottish Microscopist of the Year, an award that celebrates inspirational and outstanding contributions to the Scottish Microscopy community. We spoke to Alex to find out more about their research.

What is your role?

I’m a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Professor Ahsan Akram’s lab at the CIR. My main project is a collaboration with IRR spinout Trogenix, and looks at how effectively different gene-delivery tools carry instructions into lung cells.

Tell us a bit about your career so far.

I did an undergraduate at the University of the West of England in Bristol, moved up here for an MScR Biomedical Sciences and then an Infection Medicine PhD, both in Professor Till Bachmann’s group. 

What is the most interesting thing you’ve learned in science?

Alongside my main project, I developed FLIMKit, a free, open-source toolkit for analysing fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) data. FLIM is a technique that measures how long a sample's natural glow lasts, and it is usually analysed in each microscope manufacturer's own software. 

FLIMKit works across manufacturers' formats (including PicoQuant, Becker & Hickl and ISS), giving researchers full control of the analysis. This is the work the Scottish Microscopist of the Year award recognised.

What do you enjoy about working as a post-doc at the IRR?

What I enjoy here is the multidisciplinary working together so if you need a hand or are unsure of something outside your own discipline, you can ask for help and give help where need be. Also the jacket potatoes in The Niche cafe! 

What do you do in your free time? 

Outside I’m a technical scuba diver, notable sites include The Zenobia in Cyprus, the Akka and Kintyre in the Clyde, the SMS Cöln, the SMS Dresden, SMS Karlsruhe, SMS König and the SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm in Scapa Orkney.  

The annual Scottish Microscopist of the Year award celebrates inspirational and outstanding contributions to the Scottish Microscopy community. The winner receives £500 and has the chance to speak at the annual Scottish Microscopy Society Symposium in November. 

Alex smiling on a boat in a scuba outfit
Microscopy image of cells highlighted in shades of green
A fluorescence lifetime image of a lung tissue sample, where the colour shows fluorescence lifetime. Using our technique, we can distinguish between different cellular states.

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