This award will give Vivien fantastic opportunities to work with leading scientists in her field and learn exciting new techniques.

Vivien's PhD aims to determine the full biosynthetic pathway of branched Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers (brGDGTs) which are membrane- spanning lipids in the cell membrane of bacteria. This is of great importance since brGDGTs are important biomarkers in paleoclimatology.

One of her goals is to determine the mechanism responsible for the methylation at the C5 position of pentamethylated brGDGTs. A key part of answering how bacteria add extra methyl groups to the alkyl chains is to constrain whether this occurs via a B-12 radical enzyme or a radical SAM mechanism.

Vivien will carry out these experiments with Professor Sebastian Kopf and Adam Younkin.