Angela Beckett is a Specialist Research Technician at the University of Portsmouth, with an MSc in Biomedical Science and a background in biotechnology with a particular focus on molecular microbiology. She helped to establish and maintain the South Coast COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) sequencing hub, for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing, and is involved in a range of projects using next-generation sequencing technologies as part of the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Group and the Centre for Enzyme Innovation at the University of Portsmouth. Her current research is focused on using Nanopore sequencing and bioinformatics to discover environmental organisms with the capacity to degrade plastic. Angela is a Member of the Royal Society of Biology and has been awarded external research funding for her plastics work from the COG-UK Research Project Fund.