Alice Pyne

Professor Alice Pyne is a Professor of Biophysics and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Sheffield, within the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering. She holds a MSci in Physics from the University of Bristol and an EngD in Biophysics from UCL, where she previously held EPSRC and MRC fellowships. Her research focuses on developing high-resolution Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) techniques to study biomolecules, particularly DNA's structural dynamics and interactions. She pioneered real-time atomic-scale imaging of DNA twisting and developed TopoStats, an open-source AFM image analysis tool recognized as a field standard.

Her work bridges physics, chemistry, and biology, with applications in understanding DNA function, drug design, and antimicrobial mechanisms. Awards include the 2023 Royal Microscopy Society AFM award. She advises four current PhD students (Daniel Rollins, Mingxue Du, Libby Holmes, Max Gamill) and collaborates with industry on nanotechnology and bioimaging. She leads the Henry Royce Nanocharacterisation Laboratory and chairs the Royal Microscopy Society’s Data Analysis in Microscopy subgroup.