Dr Olga Nev

I obtained a `specialist’ diploma with honours (comparable to MMath) in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science at Nizhniy Novgorod State University in 2006. I subsequently worked as a Teaching Fellow at the Nizhniy Novgorod State University and at the St. Petersburg University of Economics, and then as a Research Assistant on the project Asymptotic properties of stochastic dynamical systems at St. Petersburg State University from 2011 to 2014.

In 2017, I obtained a PhD degree in Analytical Sciences at Warwick University, where I worked on a project which overall objective was to characterize how bacterial cells respond to changing environmental conditions by adjusting the expression levels of the transport systems and enzymes supporting various metabolic pathways.

In 2018 I joined Prof Ivana Gudelj’s group at Exeter University as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, where I used mathematical approaches to study the evolution of drug resistance in mixed-species microbial communities using Candida species as model organisms.

From April 2020 I have been working first as an MRC Skills Development Fellow and now as an NIHR BRC Exeter Translational Fellow at the MRC Medical Mycology Centre at Exeter University. The goal of my research project is to overcome the main obstacle in the study of a major fungal pathogen of humans – Pneumocystis. This pathogen kills hundreds of thousands of immunocompromised patients each year, and yet only a few groups are studying this pathogen because, currently, it is not possible to culture it in vitro independently of its host. My goal is to develop an in silico metabolic model of Pneumocystis growth and metabolism based on recently published new genomic data and to use this model to design in vitro growth conditions.