Manage your preferences

The Leeds Beckett website is designed to enable you to manage your own privacy preferences. By clicking on 'Cookies' below you can manage what data the site collects about your browsing. This will only maintain if you are on your own device or using a synched version of your chosen browser. If you are using a shared or public machine without synching your browser then there is no need to change the preferences.

Our site is built with accessibility in mind and we seek to adhere to the WACG AA levels of compliance for digital accessibility. To support that we have provided instructions on managing animations below.

Cookies

Necessary Cookies
Necessary cookies enable you to use all the different parts of leedsbeckett.ac.uk. Without them services that you have asked for cannot be provided. Necessary cookies can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
Analytical Cookies
Analytical cookies help us understand how people are using our websites, so we can improve them and provide a better user experience. We also sometimes get our approved partner companies to analyse how people are using Leeds Beckett Websites and they may set their own analytical cookies in order to do this.
Marketing Cookies
Marketing cookies allow us to provide you with online adverts that are the most relevant and useful for you.
For more information please view our Privacy Policy

Animations & Interaction

The Leeds Beckett University website occasionally uses animations to page elements and animated gifs to add impact to pages. If you wish to stop them from playing for accessibility purposes or for personal preference then please see the guidance below. Please note that browsers sometimes change how they operate, so please refer to your browser help files to find their latest information.
How do I turn off animations?

Chrome

Chrome users will need to use browser extensions. Animation Policy from Google will help you set your own preferences.

Microsoft Edge

There is currently no way to disable animations within Microsoft Edge. Users of Edge (Chromium) browser can install the Chrome extensions above and use them.

Internet Explorer

To stop animations on a single page you can just press the 'Esc' key. This will stop the animation on that page. If you wish to restart the animations you need to refresh the page. To permanently disable the playing of animated GIF images, open Internet Options > Advanced tab. Under the Multimedia section, uncheck the Play animations in webpage check-box, click Apply and Exit and then restart your computer.

Firefox

Type about:config in Firefox address bar and hit Enter to open Settings. Search for the image.animation_mode flag and change its value from Normal to None. Once you restart Firefox this will disable animations.

Dr Donna Johnson

Course Director

Donna is the Course Director for the MSc courses in Biomedical Sciences.

Her background has predominantly been in molecular biology, using PCR-based techniques to investigate the role of epigenetic control in the development of antimicrobial resistance.

Donna's current research interests are focused on the use of miRNA as biomarkers of infectious disease.

Current Teaching

Level 4 Genetics
Level 6 Biotechnology
Level 7 Preparation for the MSc Research Project
Level 7 Advanced Medical Genetics
Level 7 Extended Lab Week
BSc and MSc research project supervision

Research Interests

The effect of host miRNAs on pathogens is diverse, both promoting infection and having a protective effect, likely dependent on the specific miRNA species involved and the originating host cell type/microenvironment. Studies have focused on the use of plasma/serum miRNA as a diagnostic biomarker of infectious diseases, such as TB and viral hepatitis, and as a diagnostic/prognostic indicator of the consequences of infectious disease such as sepsis, indicating the potential utility of these molecules. However, there are few studies that have looked at PMP miRNA as biomarkers in infectious disease.

In collaboration with Dr Wayne Roberts, Donna has a current PhD student investigating the the utility of PMPs and their miRNA content as biomarkers of infectious disease. Initially, this project will focus on characterising the interaction between bacteria and PMPs and then use next generation sequencing techniques to determine the miRNA profile in response to bacterial exposure.