ON weekdays Alexandra Jackson is an award-winning scientist who is developing a new vaccine against animal disease in a university lab.

She spends her evenings as a GCSE tutor to help fund her studies at the University of Southampton.

But when she returns to her home town of Bournemouth at the weekends she transforms into a Disney Princess to entertain at children's birthday parties.

Now Alexandra, a former pupil of Avonbourne School and Twynham sixth form, has added a national Innovation award to her portfolio.

The 22-year-old, who lives in Manor Road, Bournemouth was recently named as one of four winners in the Jack Wills Young Brit Awards.

More than 2,000 people entered the awards, which were judged in four categories - Innovation, Creativity, Enterprise and Endurance.

After a gruelling selection process the top 10 in each category were invited for interviews and to pitch their ideas to the judges.

Alexandra told them how she is developing a new vaccine against foot rot in animals. The current vaccine was developed in the 1980s and is no longer fit for purpose.

She won £5,000, a £500 Jack Wills voucher and the services of a mentor.

"It was a long process and I had to go through lots of rounds but I was delighted to win" she told the Daily Echo.

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"I am self-funded at university so the money will be very useful because I already have two jobs."

Alexandra completed a degree in Biomedical Science at Bristol before moving on to Southampton to do a Phd in Molecular Microbiology.

She said she works as princess for Minky Moos in Southbourne and added: "I love it and it's certainly different to what I do during the week."