Sara Goodacre

Sara L. Goodacre is a research geneticist and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Genetics at the University of Nottingham.[1][2] She is the lead for the Open Air Laboratories,[3] a citizen science project that engages people with the outdoor environment and Deputy Director of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Doctoral Training Programme [4].

Sara Goodacre
Born
Sara L. Goodacre
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA)
University of Nottingham (PhD)
Known forSpiderLab
Scientific career
FieldsEvolutionary genetics
Population genetics
Conservation genetics
Arachnology
InstitutionsUniversity of East Anglia
University of Nottingham
University of Oxford
ThesisStudies on the evolution of Partula (1999)
Websitearachnotts.com

Education

Goodacre studied the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge as a student of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1995.[5] Goodacre joined the University of Nottingham for her graduate studies and earned her PhD in 1999 for studies on the evolution of Partula land snails.[6][5]

Career

Goodacre joined the University of Oxford[7] as a research fellow in 1999.[5] She was a research fellow at the University of East Anglia from 2002. She was described by the BBC as Spider Woman.[8] As of 2018, Goodacre is based at the University of Nottingham, where she founded the SpiderLab in 2007 and leads the ArachNotts research group.[1][9] As a geneticist, Goodacre studies the evolution, population and conservation of spiders.[2] She monitored the mating behaviour and sex ratio of the linyphiid spider Pityohyphantes phrygianus with Bengt Gunnarsson at the University of Gothenburg.[1][10] She also studied the silk of Mygalomorphae spiders and the genetic diversity of spider silk genes[11][1] and found evidence for antimicrobial activity in the silk of common house spiders.[12] She found that Erigone atra, a pest controlling spider, uses long-distance airborne dispersal.[13] Goodacre contributed to the 2011 book Spider Physiology and Behaviour: Physiology.[14] In 2015 Goodacre reported that spiders could survive "sailing" across oceans.[15]

ArachNotts study the diving bell spider and its silk, which it uses to build a diving bell in which it stores air underwater, and have so far identified some of the silk genes used by this spider.[16][11] They also work on the relationship between spiders and the microbes that they carry with them, including the mating behaviour and sex-ratio of offspring, the ecology and biological control potential of spiders in agriculture and the use of genetic tools in the conservation of the endangered raft spider.[16]

Goodacre worked alongside chemists at the University of Nottingham to create functionalised spider silk that could be used for drug delivery, wound healing and regenerative medicine.[17][18][19][20] This involved attaching fluorescent dyes and antibiotics by click chemistry to silk synthesised by Escherichia coli.[17][21][22] The intention is this synthetic silk can slowly deliver antibiotics or be used as a scaffold to grow new tissues.[23] She has patented the synthesised silk (functionalised spidroin).[24]

Goodacre created the app Spider in da House.[25] She works to make people to be less frightened of spiders, as well as engaging the public in improving the UK's biodiversity.[26][27] In June 2017, Goodacre took the SpiderLab to a series of primary schools, working in partnership with the Zoological Society of London.[28] She appears regularly on the BBC.[29][30][31][32][33][29] She has contributed to The Conversation, The Guardian[34][35] and serves as an editor of both PeerJ[36] and Heredity [37].

gollark: What if it's a trap to detect people who are willing to break the rules and randomly get people banned?
gollark: Does it involve neurolinguistic programming?
gollark: I have -666.
gollark: Nobody is volunteering for this! Nobody would just volunteer to be banned for a test!
gollark: Something something neurolinguistic programming?

References
  1. "Sara Goodacre - The University of Nottingham". www.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  2. Sara Goodacre publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  3. "Home - OPAL". www.opalexplorenature.org.
  4. "Contacts - Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Doctoral Training Programme". nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-21.
  5. "Sara Goodacre". events.experiencenottinghamshire.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  6. Goodacre, Sara L. (1999). Studies on the evolution of Partula. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Nottingham.
  7. Agnar Helgason; Eileen Hickey; Sara Goodacre; Vidar Bosnes; Ka´ri Stefa´nsson; Ryk Ward; Bryan Sykes (2001). "mtDNA and the Islands of the North Atlantic: Estimating the Proportions of Norse and Gaelic Ancestry". American Journal of Human Genetics. 68 (3): 723–737. doi:10.1086/318785. PMC 1274484. PMID 11179019.
  8. BBC. "Spider woman". Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  9. "People | ArachNotts | University of Nottingham". SpiderLab | ArachNotts | University of Nottingham. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  10. Gunnarsson, Bengt; Goodacre, Sara L.; Hewitt, Godfrey M. (2009). "Sex ratio, mating behaviour and Wolbachia infections in a sheetweb spider". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 98 (1): 181–186. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2009.01247.x. ISSN 0024-4066.
  11. Strickland, Michelle; Tudorica, Victor; Řezáč, Milan; Thomas, Neil R.; Goodacre, Sara L. (2018). "Conservation of a pH-sensitive structure in the C-terminal region of spider silk extends across the entire silk gene family". Heredity. 120 (6): 574–580. doi:10.1038/s41437-018-0050-9. ISSN 0018-067X. PMC 5943517. PMID 29445119.
  12. Wright, Simon; Goodacre, Sara L (2012). "Evidence for antimicrobial activity associated with common house spider silk". BMC Research Notes. 5: 326. doi:10.1186/1756-0500-5-326. ISSN 1756-0500. PMC 3443048. PMID 22731829.
  13. Goodacre, Sara L; Martin, Oliver Y; Bonte, Dries; Hutchings, Linda; Woolley, Chris; Ibrahim, Kamal; George Thomas, CF; Hewitt, Godfrey M (2009). "Microbial modification of host long-distance dispersal capacity". BMC Biology. 7 (1): 32. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-7-32. ISSN 1741-7007. PMC 2706808. PMID 19545353.
  14. Casas, Jérôme (2011). Spider physiology and behaviour : physiology (1st ed.). Amsterdam: Academic Press. ISBN 9780123877017. OCLC 769188140.
  15. "Sail away, spider, Newshour - BBC World Service". BBC. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  16. "Research | ArachNotts | University of Nottingham". SpiderLab | ArachNotts | University of Nottingham. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  17. "Antibiotic spider silk for drug delivery, regenerative medicine and wound healing". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  18. Rusu, Livia (2017-01-08). "'Click-Chemistry' Produces Antibiotic Spider Silk For Drug Delivery, Wound Healing". Tech Times. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  19. "Could Spider Silk be used for Wound Healing? |". 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  20. Singh, Rajni. "Spider Silk for Drug Delivery, Regenerative Medicine and Wound Healing". www.biotecharticles.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  21. Harvey, David; Bardelang, Philip; Goodacre, Sara L.; Cockayne, Alan; Thomas, Neil R. (2016). "Antibiotic Spider Silk: Site-Specific Functionalization of Recombinant Spider Silk Using "Click" Chemistry" (PDF). Advanced Materials. 29 (10): 1604245. doi:10.1002/adma.201604245. ISSN 0935-9648. PMID 28028885.
  22. NatureWorldNews (2017-01-10). "Amazing! Scientists Create Antibiotic Spider Silk for Treating Wounds via 'Click-Chemistry'". Nature World News. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  23. "Decorated Spider Silk Slowly Releases Antibiotics". www.aiche.org. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  24. Modified spider silk, retrieved 2018-09-18
  25. "Spider in da house – Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  26. Ash (2014-11-28). "Nottingham Science Blog: Interview : Dr Sara Goodacre on Spiders". Nottingham Science Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  27. "Dr Sara Goodacre - NBN Conference 2018 - National Biodiversity Network". National Biodiversity Network. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  28. "University's SpiderLab opens unique Spider School at Derbyshire primary - The University of Nottingham". www.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  29. "Mating tarantulas caught on film". 2009-06-09. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  30. McKenna, David (2014-07-28). "Perils of the English countryside". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  31. "The Spider House - Inside the Spider House - Spider House - BBC Four". BBC. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  32. "A spider-proof shed?". BBC News. 2015-09-15. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  33. Hogenboom, Melissa (2013-10-23). "How dangerous are false widow spiders?". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  34. "Sara Goodacre". The Conversation. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  35. Goodacre, Sara (2014-08-09). "Ask a grown-up: how do spiders stick to walls and ceilings?". theguardian.com. The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  36. "PeerJ - Profile - Sara Goodacre". peerj.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  37. "Heredity - Profile - Sara Goodacre". nature.com. Retrieved 2018-09-21.
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