Dr Alan Mullan | Product Specialist for Microscopy Cameras at Andor Technology.

  Dr Alan MullanAlan has a background in microscopy built from his work and studies while at Queen’s University Belfast. After a BSc (Hons) in 1999, he went on to do a PhD in microbiology within the School of Biology and Biochemistry at the Medical Biology Centre at Queens. Alan’s PhD was focused on polyphosphate metabolism of microorganisms. This looked at trying to get a better understanding of this molecule, how to quantify it, and the key roles this played within environmental and pathogenic bacteria. Roles of Polyphosphate include as a protective function in response to stress and in helping pathogens establish infections. An interesting application of this was in biological phosphate removal from wastewater at low pH for which included a large pilot scale study. This then led on to a Research Fellow position in the same research group of John Quinn and

John McGrath in 2002. While in this position Alan worked further on connecting the biochemistry and genetics of polyphosphate metabolism. This included studies to characterise the bacterial transport systems involved and development of novel research tools, such as fluorescent assays to determine intracellular pH, and how to apply these luminescence and fluorescence imaging based methods to 96 well plate formats for faster screening and analysis.

After Academia, Alan went on to work in the Medical Diagnostics Industry with Randox Laboratories, which included a roles in research and development, and product training and documentation. He then moved on to the Pharmaceutical industry with Almac. Alan joined Andor Technology in 2012, initially working as a Technical Author for the scientific imaging camera and microscopy systems products. His current role at Andor Technology is as the Product Specialist for microscopy cameras. This role brings Alan in touch with the latest developments in camera technology, as well as a broad range of microscopy applications and research techniques.

Selected Publications

• Cooper J, Mullan A, Marsh A, Barszczewski A. (2019). Characterization of performance of back-illuminated SCMOS cameras versus conventional SCMOS and EMCCD cameras for microscopy applications. Proc. SPIE 10925, Photonic Instrumentation Engineering VI, 109251C (4 March 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2510614
• Cooper J, Browne M, Gribben H, Catney M, Coates C, Mullan A, Wilde G and Henriques R. (2019). Real time multi-modal super-resolution microscopy through Super-Resolution Radial Fluctuations (SRRF-Stream). Proc. SPIE 10884, Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Superresolution Imaging XII, 1088418 (22 February 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2510761
• Mullan, A and Marsh A, (2019). Choosing the Best Camera for fluorescence Microscopy. Royal Microscopical Society (Great Britain). Issue 54.
• Tobin K. M., McGrath J. W., Mullan, A, Quinn J. P, O'Connor, K. E. (2007) Polyphosphate Accumulation by Pseudomonas putida CA-3 and Other Medium-Chain-Length Polyhydroxyalkanoate-Accumulating Bacteria under Aerobic Growth Conditions. Applied and Environmental Microbiology Feb 2007, 73 (4) 1383-1387; DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02007-06
• Moriarty, T., Mullan, A., McGrath, J., Quinn, J., Elborn, J. and Tunney, M. (2006), Effect of reduced pH on inorganic polyphosphate accumulation by Burkholderia cepacia complex isolates. Letters in Applied Microbiology, 42: 617-623. doi:10.1111/j.1472-765X.2006.01930.x
• Mullan A., McGrath, J. W., Adamson T., Irwin,S. and Quinn J. P. (2006). Pilot-Scale Evaluation of the Application of Low pH-Inducible Polyphosphate Accumulation to the Biological Removal of Phosphate from Wastewaters. Environmental Science & Technology 2006 40(1),296-301. DOI: 10.1021/es0509782
• Aprea, G., Mullan, W.M.A., Mullan, A., Murru, N., Tozzi, M., Cortesi., M.L. (2005). Isolation of polyphosphate-accumulating lactic acid bacteria from natural whey starters. Milchwissenshaft 60, 256-258.
• Mullan, A., McGrath J. W., and Quinn, J. P. (2005). Low pH-inducible polyphosphate accumulation: pilot-scale application to wastewater treatment of a previously unrecognized aspect of microbial phosphorus metabolism (submitted for publication).
• Mullan, A., Quinn, J. P. and McGrath, J. W. (2002). A non-radioactive method for the assay of polyphosphate kinase activity and its application in the study of polyphosphate metabolism in Burkholderia cepacia. Analytical Biochemistry 308, 294 - 299.
• Mullan, A., Quinn J. P. and McGrath, J. W. (2002). Enhanced phosphate uptake and polyphosphate accumulation in Burkholderia cepacia grown under low pH conditions. Microbial Ecology, 44 (1), 69-77.
• Mullan, A., Quinn, J. P. and McGrath, J. W. (2002). Phosphate Removal from Wastewaters: A Novel Approach. Chemical Engineering and Technology (Engineering in Life Sciences) 2, 63-66.
• McGrath, J W, Cleary S, Mullan A, and Quinn, J. P. (2001). Acid-stimulated phosphate uptake by activated sludge microorganisms under aerobic laboratory conditions. Water Research 35 (18) 4317 - 4322.
• Mullan, A., Quinn, J. P. and McGrath, J. W. (2001). Phosphate removal from wastewaters. In Removal of Phosphorus and Recovery from Sludge. Leeds, UK. (Horan N.J. ed.) Aqua Enviro Technology Transfer.

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