About Bury Labs

 With 100s of thousands of synthetic chemicals produced annually and an unprecedented recent rapid loss in biodiversity it is imperative that we identify the chemicals that are most hazardous and those species most vulnerable to maintain healthy global ecosystems. This is a daunting task and one of the most urgent research topics of the 21st Century.

Our work aims to address some of these issue that apply to the marine and freshwater environments. To achieve this, we integrate animal physiology and endocrinology, cell function and molecular biology to understand the mode of action of chemical pollutants in the context of environmental change. We use Novel Approach Methodologies (NAMs) such as fish cell cultures, in vitro techniques, and computational modelling combined with our knowledge of the response of organisms to chemical insults to predict the hazards, and risks to aquatic wildlife. We are also developing innovative biosensors as environmental monitors capable of rapidly identifying pollutant classes of concern in both the marine and freshwater ecosystems.

The lab is based in the National Oceanographic Centre and is part of the Marine Biology and Ecology Research Group (MBERG), Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) and Institute for Life Science (IfLS) at the University of Southampton.

Nic Bury is an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Southampton based at National Oceanographic Centre.

Nic started his research career investigating the effects of cyanobacteria on fish with Profs Brian Eddy and Geoff Codd at the University of Dundee. After completing his PhD he then performed post-docs in the laboratories of Prof Gert Flik at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands and Prof Chris Wood at the University of McMaster , Canada. He then obtained an EU Marie Curie Fellowship and returned to Europe to work with Dr. Patrick Prunet, INRA Rennes, France and finally returned to the UK to take up a personal University Fellowship at the University of Exeter. He obtained a lectureship in Aquatic Biology at King’s College London in 2001 and was appointed a Reader in Aquatic Ecotoxicology in 2014. He decided after 16 years at King’s to embark on a new challenge and took up a position in the Faculty of Health, Science, and Technology at the University of Suffolk in January 2017 becoming a Professor of Environmental Toxicology in 2018.

His research integrates molecular, physiological and toxicological techniques with computational methods to understand and predict how organisms respond to natural and man-induced stressors