Connaire Jenkins, a biochemistry student from Surrey University, has recently started his placement year with the Food Safety group at Cefas in which he will gain valuable experience of working in both a research laboratory and a statutory testing laboratory. Connaire is one of the many excellent students that Cefas hosts every year in collaboration with university’s across the UK. While here, Connaire will be helping Dr David Walker with some of the research aspects of the Viraqua project. Connaire’s main focus will be on the improvement of the method for typing F+ coliphage. The current method used by Cefas to determine the proportions of viable F+ coliphage genogroups in water and shellfish samples is very laborious and there is the potential to greatly improve the method.