Matthew Topping

I'm Matthew Topping, MRes student on the MRes/PhD CoMPLEX programme at UCL.

I am currently working on the viability of using certain insecticides to combat malaria, but more generally my interests cover mechanosensation in insects particularly with regards to the importance of chordotonal organs.

For any questions or queries my UCL email address is m.topping.12@ucl.ac.uk.

The two pictures above are close up images of Drosophila taken by Dr Joerg Albert. I have worked with fruitflies a number of times throughout my MRes year and am always impressed by their durability and usefulness as a model organism.

About me

As an undergraduate I studied for an MMath in Mathematics with Physics at the University of York with a dissertation topic of Riemannian Geometry. Despite my love of geometry I then studied on the MSc in Modern Epidemiology course at Imperial College London (mainly due to the influence of my fourth year Molecular Biophysics module). It was whilst studying there that I heard about the CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life sciences and EXperimental biology) course at UCL and how that would allow me to use my mathematical knowledge in biologically relevant situations. I immediately applied for the programme and was accepted for studies beginning in September 2012.

In terms of research I am most interested in vector-borne diseases, particularly the Neglected Tropical Diseases. My MSc project at Imperial looked at co-infection by Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiura and I hope to be able to investigate concomitant infections again in the future.

In my free time I work at the Joerg Albert laboratory in the UCL Ear Institute, splitting fly stocks and assisting in the preparation of experiments looking at circadian rhythms, mechanosensation in Diptera and gene expression (as well as a few other areas). Otherwise I spend my time exploring London and training for my next long distance run.

The three papers that have had the biggest influence on me are:

• This paper brilliantly discusses the development of concomitant helminth infection models and how competition between helminth species in a host can affect the host.


• This 2006 paper on classifying all of the Drosophila brain's auditory sensory projections is astonishing in its thoroughness and experimental rigour.


• Finally it was this publication by Simon Brooker on estimating the disease burden worldwide of intestinal nematodes that inspired me to study helminths.

My contact email is m.topping.12@ucl.ac.uk and a copy of my CV can be found here.