ApconiX Welcomes Dr Hannah Dixon
ApconiX is delighted to welcome Dr Hannah Dixon who joins the Safety Science team and will be working with Dr Nicholas Coltman within the data science group. A native speaker of Spanish and Catalan, Hannah is a dedicated bioinformatician who will apply her advanced computational skills to realise the potential of data science to innovate drug safety and drug discovery.
Academic Career
Hannah was born in the UK and moved to Barcelona at a very young age. She returned to the UK to study, gaining a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Manchester, where she conducted laboratory research using live-cell imaging to investigate mRNA localisation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast).
Hannah also carried out research into Saccharomyces cerevisiae during a student placement at Croda Europe, a speciality chemical company interested in manufacturing chemicals by biotechnology processes including fermentation. She then continued at the University of Birmingham, where she investigated the essential RNA regulating proteins UPF1, UPF2 and UPF3 in the model system Drosophila melanogaster for her PhD.
Throughout her doctoral research, Hannah developed expertise in bioinformatics, applying these skills to various next-generation sequencing projects. Her work revealed that UPF1 plays roles in RNA synthesis beyond its known function in RNA decay, particularly in regulating transcription and mRNA processing within the nucleus.
Working at ApconiX
Hannah made connections with the team at ApconiX, several members of which maintain academic collaborations with the University of Birmingham. Nic Coltman approached Hannah with the opportunity to support the data science aspects of the Safety Science team, initially in a part-time capacity while she finished writing up her PhD. Hannah, as Data Science Lead, is instrumental in developing our target safety assessment Bio-data.
Dr Nicholas Coltman, Deputy Head of Safety Science, commented: “We are very pleased that Hannah accepted our invitation to lead our Data Science pipeline as part of the ApconiX Safety Science team. A skilled bioinformatician, Hannah also brings to bear her expertise as an RNA biologist. She has rapidly expanded our provisions within the areas of target expression analysis, molecular genetics, modality considerations and text mining. Data Science forms an integral part of our Acuity products and Hannah’s expertise has enhanced our internal efficiency. This has, ultimately, further improved the products and services we can use to support clients in answering their complex questions in target and modality safety.”
Interests Outside Work
Hannah practices yoga and aspires to become an instructor in the future. She also likes running, hiking and walking, and is currently enjoying studying and playing chess.
