About our Tutors

About our lecturers and demosntrators

Our lecturers and demonstrators come from the University of Oxford, Oxford hospitals and Oxford Brookes University. Each practical training course is led by a senior demonstrators, assisted by junior demonstrators when required, who are either doctoral students in the final stages of their degree, or are postdoctoral scientists. Our intellectual property and commercialisation training workshops will be led by experienced patent and IP lawyers.

Director of Practicals

Dr Sabine Fischer-Parton (MSc, PhD) is the Director of Practicals of OxonLab with a wealth of teaching and research experience. Dr Fischer-Parton obtained an MSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Cologne (Germany) and a PhD in from the University of Edinburgh (UK). After her PhD, Dr Fischer-Parton worked at the University of Edinburgh as a post-doctoral scientist with Professor Tony Trewavas. She then took the post of Senior Tutor for the Biology Teaching Organisation at the University of Edinburgh. This involved running various 1st and 2nd year biology practicals, class tutorials, provision of individual and group academic student support, and examination and assessment. In 2007, Dr Fischer-Parton moved to Oxford and started teaching undergraduates at the Department of Biochemistry where she is currently a Senior Demonstrator and supervises biochemistry and biomedical sciences practical classes. She is involved in running class tutorials for 1st year biochemistry students and acts as an examiner for Prelims in Biological Chemistry.

Academic Director

Dr M Sohail (BSc, MSc, MPhil, DPhil) – a University of Oxford academic since 1991 and CEO of LibPubMedia Ltd – is the Academic and Managing Director of the OxonLab with diverse research experience in microbiology, molecular biology, human genetics, technology development and policy matters. He will be responsible for the overall administration and academic aspects of the training programmes. Dr Sohail is a biomedical scientist by training and obtainied his doctoral degree from the University of Oxford (UK) in chemical microbiology under the supervision of Professor Keith Dyke. He then joined Professor Edwin Southern’s laboratory at the Oxford Biochemistry Department as a postdoctoral scientist, conducting cutting-edge research in DNA microarrays, therapeutic oligonucleotides, including antisense oligonucleotide and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). He has published around 40 research and review articles in international journals and books, many of which he co-authored with Whitley Professor Sir Edwin Southern FRS (Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, 2005) and Dr Sir Tim Hunt FRS (Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, 2001).  He also edited a book entitled Gene Silencing by RNA Interference in 2004.

Dr Sohail has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Oxford since 1995. As well as acting on numerous academic committees at the University of Oxford, he was also a member of the Oxford Congregation, and a lead examiner for several undergraduate courses, including Bachelor of Medicine, and Physiology. In 2005, he founded an Oxford-based open-access publishing company, Library Publishing Media, and then a communications company, LibPubMedia Ltd. Dr Sohail has also been the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of a number of scientific journals and is the founding member and the Managing Director of the International Society on Aptamers.