James Tate

Background

About James Tate

In 2014 I began an integrated masters course titled 'Food Science and Food Security' at Queen's University Belfast. As part of the course I completed a years work experience as a Quality assistant at 'Good 4 U' in Sligo. For my third year project I designed novel DNA primer's for the isothermal amplification of DNA belonging to the food bourne pathogen Listeria monocythogenes. Finally for my Master's project I explored the potential of paper based surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy substrates (SERS). Then in 2019 I graduated with a 2:1 (69) and I began a PhD that September. My PhD involves the fabrication of novel metallic SERS substrates for the detection of pesticide residues in complex food matrices as well as micro and nano plastics in water samples. To improve the selectivity of my SERS approach I incorporated chemometrics which was carried out using a combination of Python code and SIMCA software. During my time as a PhD researcher I have had the opportunity to present my research in the format of a poster at RAFA 2022 and I have been invited to present further work at the world congress for Biosensors in Busan.