Ryan Beveridge

In 2016 the Virus Screening Facility (VSF) was been set up to establish a single point of call for lentivirus production/advice and to facilitate lentiviral library creation, primarily for CRISPR screening.

Lentivirus provide a mechanism by which foreign DNA sequence can be integrated into host genomes, this allows for expression of exogenous sequence. While many transfection/transduction mechanisms are available lentivirus are able to infect non-dividing cells while delivering up to 10kb of donor DNA.

The aim of the facility is to provide assistance in all aspects of lentiviral screening from initial experimental design through to virus production, purification, transduction and data retrieval/analysis.

I gained my PhD at the University of Sheffield in the laboratory of Dr Spencer Collis where my work focussed on the molecular biology of the DNA Damage Response and potential links with the Rho signalling network.

I gained industrial experience as an upstream process development scientist for large-scale production of lentiviral vectors, using autoclavable and single use bioreactors with volumes ranging from scale down models to production capacity vessels.