Dr Steven West

About me:

Following completion of my BSc at the University of Manchester, I went to Oxford University to carry out a PhD with Prof Nick Proudfoot. There I studied mechanisms of transcription and RNA degradation - in particular the mechanism of transcriptional termination. I had such a good time in Nick's lab that I remained there as a post-doc during which time I was also the Hayward Junior Research Fellow at Oriel College. Following my time in Oxford, I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship to stary my independent lab at The University of Edinburgh. This was also a very enjoyable time and culminated in my election into the EMBO Young Investigator Programme and my first open-ended academic post - a Senior Lectureship at the University of Sheffield. I was then awarded both a Lister Institute Fellowship and a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award to continue pursuing my long-term interest in RNA biogenesis mechanisms. I moved to The Living Systems Institute in Exeter as soon as it opened early in 2017.

My lab has a general interest in RNA biology and transcription by RNA polymerase II. This is one of the most fundamental processes in life and is often disrupted in disease. We seek to understand how the extent of transcription is controlled on a gene. We are also interested in mechanisms that control non-coding transcription and the degradation of these poorly characterised transcripts. We perform these studies in human cell lines that we manipulate using CRISPR-Cas9 engineering that allows us to control these processes with precision.

2006 DPhil (PhD) University of Oxford

2002 Bsc Hons (first class) University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology