Technical Expertise: James Larkin
My technical expertise is divided into biological and technical and computing sub-categories.
Biological and technical expertise
- Magnetic resonance imaging with particular emphasis on pre-clinical scanners
- NMR of biological samples such as urine, plasma and cerebrospinal fluid
- CT scanning, radiotherapy treatment planning and adminstration
- Metabolomic analyses including multivariate statistical analysis techniques such as PLS-DA.
- Mammalian tissue culture; both cell lines and primary. Cell extraction and culture from tissue resections. Maintenance and use of tissue culture facilities.
- Extensive HPLC experience with method development and troubleshooting. Reverse phase, anion/cation exchange and size-exclusion gel-permeation chemistries. Competent maintaining and repairing machinery.
- Molecular analysis of gene expression in cells and tissues using real time RNA quantitation.
- PCR, agarose electrophoresis and nucleic acid extraction from tissues and cells.
- Analysis of protein expression levels using immunoprecipitation, subcellular fractionation and western blotting.
- Immunohistochemical analysis of cells and tissue sections.
- Fluorescence and absorbance based microplate and large-scale assays including ELISAs.
- LC-MS/MS analysis with electrospray ionisiation and multiple reaction monitoring.
- Radioisotope handling for in vitro analyses, scintillation counting etc.
- Robotics
- Expertise with a wide range of liquid- and sample-handling robots along with automated sample-processing systems of many types.
- Competent implementing high-throughput robotic versions of manul assays including assay design, system procurement and installation, system programming and assay validation.
- A keen technical insight allows quick familiarity with machines and assays and permits on-site maintenance and improvements.
- Example systems I have worked on include cherry picking from a library of samples, exhaustive enzymatic digests, sample re-arraying, pharmaceutical lead compound drying and standard reconstitution and custom microarray manufacture.
- Simple synthetic chemistry including preparative-scale HPLC, solid phase extraction, TLC, rotary evaporation and freeze-drying.
- Actinomycete and other bacterial culture and isolation.
- Expertise with a wide range of other general lab-equipment e.g. flow cytometers, centrifugal evaporators, spectrophotometers, high-speed centrifuges and microtomes.
Computing expertise
The computing experience listed here is that which is most relevant to a scientific career.
- Experience with bioinformatics analysis packages of large multivariate datasets e.g. metabolomics and PLS-DA.
- Expert user of both Linux and Windows.
- Competent MATLAB programmer, especially for analysis of metabolomics, MRI datasets and image analysis.
- Extensive experience with all types of computer including both hardware and software.
- Expert user of Office and bibliographic software including Endnote and JabRef and experience with statistical packages such as SPSS and Prism and scientific utilities e.g. primer design.
- Competent programmer in a variety of languages to automate repetitive data handling tasks
- Expertise with vector-based graphics packages and LaTeX typesetting software
- Experience with bioinformatic data-mining of protein and nucleotide databases
In addition to these science-centric computing skills, I also design, code and maintain websites (e.g. this one) and routinely build new machines for family and friends.
Most pertinent details from my CV are included on these pages but if you would like a copy, feel free to request one by contacting me.
