Peptide-mimetic metallohelices bind Alzheimer protein and extend life in an insect model

A collaboration between the Fox, Scott and Gibson groups has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The team were inspired by how small helical antifreeze proteins in Nature enable extreomophiles to survive low temperatures, where other species would not survive. Rather than using traditional peptide/protein chemistry, the team used self-assembled metallohelicates which have similar dimensions to a small alpha helix, and found some which were remarkably potent at stopping ice crystal growth ; a major technological challenge in applications from wind farms, to aircraft to cryopreservation. Modelling studies showed that the underlying activity could be linked the patches of hydrophobicity (water liking) and hydrophobicity (water hating).

Read the paper here

Antifreeze Protein Mimetic Metallohelices with Potent Ice Recrystallization Inhibition Activity

The Pattison Group have published the first Rh-catalysed arylation of fluorinated ketones in Chem Comm. Interestingly, we showed the difluorinated (CF₂H) ketone to be more reactive than the trifluoromethyl (CF₃) ketone, despite the fact each additional fluorine atom provides extra electronic activation.

Collaborative work from the groups of Chaplin, Unwin, Rourke, and Wedge (Warwick physics) exploring the organometallic chemistry of paramagnetic complexes of palladium(I) and platinum(I) has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 

Warwick Chemistry, Life Science and Medical School team up to make a new generation of readily self-assembled metallohelices kill cancer cells at very low concentration (40 nM) but have low toxicty to microbes, insects and healthy human cells.

Work performed in Richard Walton’s group has been selected as a Research Highlight in the Diamond Light Source Annual Review for 2014-2015. In this work, carried out by PhD student Craig Hiley, the structures of three new metastable ruthenium oxides were determined in a collaborative project between Warwick and sustainable technology company Johnson Matthey. Ruthenium oxides are used in electro-catalysis for water oxidation and reduction, in heterogeneous catalysis, and are also of interest for their electronic and magnetic properties

http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Home/Corporate-Literature/Annual-Review/Review2015/Villages/Engineering-and-Environment-Village/The-structures-of-new-ruthenium-oxides-from-aqueous-chemistry.html

Adrian Chaplin has been award one of this years Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prizes from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

'It appears that a series of catalysts developed in the Warwick Chemistry department have the ability to achieve the impossible: 'Impossible Ketone and Imine Reductions Made Possible by the Ruthenium Tethered Catalyst' reads the headline of the Johnson Matthey (JM) advert on the back of the April 2015 issue of Chemistry World. The tethered ruthenium catalysts described in the advert were first developed and reported by Professor Martin Wills and his group, and have since been developed extensively at Warwick and adopted by companies worldwide, including JM.

3 Academics in the Department have been awarded prestigious ERC starting grants with a total value of almost €5 million. Set up in 2007 by the EU, the European Research Council (ERC) is the first pan-European funding organisation for frontier research. It aims to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by encouraging competition for funding between the very best, creative researchers of any nationality and age.

Dr Adrian Chaplin will develop new synthetic methodology for studying the interaction of alkanes with transition metals.
Dr Matthew Gibson will study mimics of antifreeze (glyco)proteins with the aim of improving cell cryopreservation.
Dr Józef Lewandowski will develop and apply approaches to investigate structural dynamics of large protein complexes by solid- and solution-state NMR.

These awards bring the total number of ERC-funded researches in the Department to 8, a clear testament to the internationally-leading nature of the research environment at Warwick.

Supramolecular guanosine-borate hydrogels have been made and characterised in a collaboration led by Jeff Davis (University of Maryland) with Andrew Marsh (Chemistry) and Steven Brown (Physics). The physiologically compatible gels, published in Journal of the American Chemical Society are featured in a Spotlight article. Lead author Gretchen Peters and Jeff Davis will visit Warwick again, 17-21 November to further explore applications of the materials.

A warm welcome to Professor Philip Chan, who joins the Department from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In partnership with the Monash-Warwick Alliance, Professor Chan will take up the role of Professor of Sustainable Chemistry. In this role, he will be pursuing the development of new green and sustainable catalytic strategies for complex molecule synthesis and their potential applications in the fields of natural products and functional materials synthesis, and drug discovery.