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.

Lewandowski group in collaboration with Grzesiek (Basel, Switzerland) and Samoson (Tallinn, Estonia) groups has introduced a new solid-state NMR based approach that enables quantitative structural and dynamics studies of large protein complexes in a few nanomole quantities. This manuscript signifying a dawn of new era for high resolution NMR studies of large protein complexes has been featured in JACS Spotlights. Read the article in JACS.

The GibsonGroup's recent work on antifreeze-protein mimics has been highlighted on the front cover of RSC Biomaterials Science. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/bm/c4bm00153b#!divAbstract

The Gibson's group Cryopreservation research has been highlighted in an article in Chemical and Engineering News. The group are developing a range of macromolecules which mimic the function of antifreeze proteins, found in Polar fish species, which can slow the rate of ice crystal growth. The group have shown these unique polymers to enhance the cryopreservation of donor tissue/cells, particulary blood. (Image is ice crystals which are inhibited by the polymers)Read the article here (Login required) and also the Chemistry World Feature here(login required).

Read Popular Science (USA) article on this here or BBC TV story here.

See publication list for full details.

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.

Robert Deller, in the GibsonGroup won the prize for the best poster at the 2014 RAPS Conference

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.

Dr Matthew Gibson has been awarded the life science prize at the Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technology technology competition. http://tinyurl.com/kmdw8pq

Caroline Biggs in the GibsonGroup won the prize for best poster presentation at the 13th European Summer Course on Glycosciences. Her winning poster was entitled 'Polymer Functionalised Surfaces for Microarray Applications'.

The GibsonGroup describe glycopolymers that selectively target the Cholera toxin and may provide a non-antibiotic tool to combat infectious diseases

Lewandowski group in collaboration with Ladizhansky and Brown (U. of Guelph) groups have characterised site-specific molecular motions of a 7-helix membrane protein within a lipid bilayer using solid-state NMR measurements. Read the article in JACS.