Dr Ian McDowall

Head of Biological Sciences

Ian is currently Deputy Head of Biological Sciences and the programme leader for the single and combined honours Forensic Biology degree programmes.

Qualifications

PhD

Overview

Dr Ian McDowall left secondary education in 1974 at the age of 16 and with limited formal academic qualifications to undertake a position of full-time employment as an engineer and part-time motorcycle mechanic. He was employed in this capacity for the following nine years before he decided to change direction completely and undertake an access course enabling him to gain entry to Liverpool Polytechnic there, in 1987, he commenced a full time degree course in Applied Biochemistry, specialising in mammalian biochemistry and molecular biology. He subsequently graduated in 1990 and joined Liverpool University, where he undertook a PhD in the investigation of factors influencing the expression of the phenylalanine hydroxylase gene.

Teaching

Since joining the University of Chester as part of the lecturing staff in 1993, Ian has taught modules covering a diverse range of subjects including physiology, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry and forensic DNA analysis.

Research

Ian's current research interests are quite diverse. He has retained his interest in the investigation of factors influencing the expression of genes involved in the aetiology of human disease.

More recently however he has become interested in the application of forensic DNA analysis in addressing biological questions, including wildlife forensics and phylogenetics.

In this respect, he is currently involved in a project involving the analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from limited substrates which have been obtained by non-invasive field sampling of rare or critically endangered species.