Congratulations to Mary J. Thomas, who is a PhD student in the Barrow Group, for winning the Barber Prize for best student talk at the 39th annual meeting of the British Mass Spectrometry Society in Cambridge. Based upon collaborative research with the British Geological Survey, Mary presented her talk entitled “Petroleomic Depth Profiling of Contaminated Staten Island Soil by GC and FT-ICR MS.” Using Rock-Eval 6 data and ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, complex compositional depth profiles were developed for environmental monitoring and to provide insight into the site’s history of contamination.

Two virtual reality videos have been released for this month's Stand Up To Cancer event which showcase research from the University of Warwick and are narrated by actress Olivia Colman and Stephen Fry.

Scientists at Warwick University have discovered an incredible new way of administering chemotherapy drugs which is more effective and safer for the patient.

Stand Up To Cancer is a joint fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4, which aims to accelerate ground-breaking research, like that being done in Coventry, in order to save lives.

We are pleased to announce Ezat Khoshdel has been appointed as an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the department. Ezat has been a long-standing collaborator with the department with multiple projects over 25 years. Ezat has recently retired from Unilever where he was the inventor of over 150 patents, the largest number of any Unilever employee. Ezat will be more than happy to discuss ideas and work across the department and add to our impact activities. Ezat can be contacted on E.Khoshdel@warwick.ac.uk and will next be in the department on October 11^th when he gives a lecture to our new Polymer MSc cohort.

The survival mechanisms of polar fish have led researchers in Chemistry and Warwick Medical School to develop a revolutionary approach to ‘freeze’ bacteria, with potential applications within the food industry, organ transportation and medicine - as well as in laboratory research.

Environmentally friendly plastic packaging could be in the shops in future, thanks to research undertaken by Professor Tim Bugg's group.