Helical arrays of small organic molecules around a core of Fe(II) ions act as highly potent and highly selective anticancer compounds. The work is published in Nature Chemistry.

Stereochemistry is a very important issue for pharmaceutical industry and can determine drug efficacy. Scott group metallohelices have been shown, in collaboration with Xiaogang Chu and co-workers at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, China, to enantioselectively target and inhibit amyloid (Aβ) aggregation. This provides new insights into chiral inhibition of Aβ aggregation and opens a new avenue for design and screening of chiral agents as Aβ inhibitors against Alzheimer's disease. The work is published in J. Am. Chem. Soc.

Warwick Chemistry has played a lead role in securing funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for 2 new Centres for Doctoral training, in Molecular Analytical Science and Diamond Science and Technology, as part of the recently announced UK's largest investment in postgraduate training in engineering and physical sciences. The Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts, announced the funding of over seventy new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), spread across 24 UK universities on 22nd November.

For further information please visit:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/university_of_warwick_takes_share_of_163350m_to_train_tomorrow146s_engineers_and_scientists1

http://onlinepressoffice.tnrcommunications.co.uk/universities-funding/video 

Scientists have discovered that a drug which increases the risk of sudden cardiac death interacts with mistranslated protein-coding genes present in heart muscle.

Scott group researchers report in Chemical Science (Open Access) that some of their helical metal flexicate complexes have high activity and selectivity against a range of cancer cell lines including cisplatin-resistant strains. The mechanism involves arresting cells in the G2/mitosis phase, and DNA binding is not necessarily involved.

The Gibson group have undertaken a detailed study into the ability of synthetic polymers to inhibit the growth of ice crystals - this is a fundmental process of incredible importance in biology (survival of extremophiles), medicine (cryoprotectection of cells/organs) and industry (preventing ice-induced damage). The Gibson group are pioneering the use of polymers as alternative to antifreeze proteins - Nature's cryoprotectants, using a combination of chemical, analytical, biological and computational methods

Read their latest paper here, in collaboration with R. Notman (CSC): http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bm400217j

The Gibson Group publishes in Biomaterials Science on why certain (macro)molecules are capable of inhibiting ice crystal growth, inspired by antifeeze proteins.

The work, conducted in collaboration with Warwick Medical School provides insights into which structural features are essential for a (macro)molecule to inhibit ice crystal growth and why apparently similar compounds have opposing activity.

The ability to control ice crystal growth is a major technological challenge (anyone stuck at Heathrow or scraping their car...?) with many biotechnological applications.

Read the paper here

Daniel Phillips, a 2nd year PhD student in the Gibson Group, won the prize for best poster at the RSC Postgraduate Nanoscience Symposium held at the University of Birmingham.

Read some of Dan's publications in Chem Commun and Biomacromolecules

Sadler and Stavros groups in collaboration with Prof Martin Paterson at Heriot-Watt University, publish work in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The work describes the first demonstration of a 2-photon activated, square planar platinum (II) complex. The enhanced photolabilization demonstrated may be useful in the design of novel photoactivatable platinum chemotherapeutic agents in situations where deep tissue penetration is needed. Read the article here.

The group of Richard Walton have this month co-authored three papers published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Chemical Communications on various aspects of porous metal-organic framework (MOF) materials.

Establishing an independent academic career is an exciting and challenging process. The data available for UK chemistry suggests that more women than men find the process not exciting enough or too challenging. A key aspect of success in any career path is finding role models, establishing networks, and being tapped into good sources of information. Our aim is therefore to create opportunities for all of these in the first (and subsequent) Irène Joliot-Curie conference.

Prof. Greg Challis and Dr Lijiang Song, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Paris, report in Angewandte Chemie a hitherto unanticipated pathway for the biosynthesis of pyrroles from sugars. Using a combination of genetic engineering, isolation, structure elucidation, synthesis and feeding of biosynthetic intermediates, and incorporation of stable isotope-labelled precursors, the researchers showed that a carbohydrate, most likely N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate, is elaborated to the 4-acetamidopyrrole-2-carboxylate building blocks of the DNA-binding antibiotic congocidine (also known as netropsin). The assembly of pyrroles from carbohydrates is unprecedented in Nature and raises several intriguing questions regarding the mechanisms of the reactions involved. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201201445/abstract for further details.