Miss W Lianne Niehaus
Postgraduate research student
Miss W Lianne Niehaus is a Postgraduate research student within Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.
I graduated with a Biomedical Science (Hons) degree at the University of Southampton in 2010. During my 3rd year of my undergraduate degree I developed an appreciation for biofilms and the threat they pose to medicine. My specific interests include microbial/biofilm detection and diagnostics relating to chronic medical infections. During my PhD I have been fortunate to work within Southampton General Hospital and collaborated with clinicians and collecting patient central venous catheter samples. In addition I spent time at the National Centre for Advanced Tribology within the engineering department at the University of Southampton developing catheter-vein flow models to further advance biofilm detection within central venous catheters.
My time was spent evaluating biofilm colonisation within central venous catheters in patient samples as well as in vitro grown samples using sonication culture, light microscopy, optical profilometry, confocal laser scanning microscopy, scanning electron microscopy as well as x-ray micro computed tomography.