News

Dr Corinna Preuss has been awarded a Newton International Fellowship to conduct research at the University of Warwick’s Department of Chemistry.

Jointly run by The British Academy, The Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society, the Fellowship is for non-UK scientists who are at an early stage of their research career and provides the opportunity for the best early stage post-doctoral researchers from all over the world to work at UK research institutions for a period of two years.

Speaking after being awarded the Fellowship Dr Preuss said:

“I’m very honoured and delighted to be awarded the Newton International Fellowship. Not only will it support my personal development but is also emphasises the novelty and importance of our proposed research project.”

Dr Preuss will work as part of a team led by Professor Stefan Bon to mimic the motional behaviour of zooplankton by fabricating artificial jelly-objects that have the capability to transform shape, swim, and – as an additional feature – release payloads. Dr Preuss says these hydrogel objects will have these three pre-programmed functions “which can be triggered on demand in a controlled fashion”. For this purpose, recent scientific advances in polymer and colloid chemistry will be merged with soft matter physics and robotics in order to create a promising and interdisciplinary research program

Further to the research with Professor Bon, Dr Preuss is keen to use the Fellowship to teach undergraduate chemists and to create a network with other fellow scientists, saying that: “In my opinion, exchanging knowledge and listening to different opinions is essential for the formation of a highly efficient scientific society”.

Discussing why she chose the University of Warwick Dr Preuss said:

“I met Professor Stefan Bon during a conference in Mexico. I was impressed by his research and the passion he presented it with. Later on, whilst I was presenting my research at the poster session, we got the chance to chat more and discovered that our interests in each other’s research would create a promising base for a further collaboration. In working with Stefan and coming to the University of Warwick, I’m taking the chance of changing my field of research to colloidal chemistry and engineering, which provides a new, challenging and fascinating area for me”.

2 September 2015

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Congratulations to Richard Walton who has been awarded a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with Johnson Matthey.

A recent paper by the GibsonGroup in Chem Commun has been highlighted in the RSC Magazine 'Chemistry World'. The Gibson Group have a research program focussed on mimicking the function of Antifreeze Proteins which are found in Polar fish species. These proteins can slow the rate of ice growth, which has been identified as a challenge in the cryopreservation of donor cells and tissue for transplantation. In this work they showed a facile route to new cryoprotective polymers, using cheap, commodity polymer starting materials. These polymers were shown to have ice growth inhibition activity and to signficantly reduce the ice-induced damage during red blood cell freeze/thaw storage. In a second paper, the group also reported signficantly enhanced cryopreservation using poly(vinyl alcohol).

Read the Chemistry World article here

Read the Chemical Communications article here; Rational, yet simple, design and synthesis of an antifreeze-protein inspired polymer for cellular cryopreservation

Read our recent ACS Biomaterials Science and Enginneering paper here Glycerol Free Cryopreservation of Red Blood Cells Enabled by Ice Recrystallization Inhibiting Polymers

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

Professor Hong Liang, President of Guangxi Normal University, presents an award to Peter Sadler after his Plenary Lecture to the International Symposium on Medicinal Bioinorganic Chemistry, held in Guilin, China, on 18 July 2015.

Read Elena Riva's published interview in the THE

https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/the-postdoc-experience-hopes-and-fears?page=0%2C2

James Crosland, one of Peter Sadler’s tutees, has won an award during his placement at ISIS this year. James was presented with an Individual Staff Recognition Award for the category Those Who ‘Go the Extra Mile', specifically ‘for carrying out additional duties and becoming more involved in direct user support, coordinated user visits, discussing user requirements, providing user training, and running experiments on behalf of users.’ (Users being those making use of the kit/facilities across the support laboratories and neutron beamtime).

Peter Sadler and the other Plenary Lecturers were called upon to ‘paint the dragon’ at the Asian Coordination Chemistry Conference (ACCC5) held in Hong Kong from 12-16 July 2015

In research led by PhD student Jess Hearn and post-doc Isolda Romero, Peter Sadler’s group has reported in PNAS an organo-osmium anticancer compound with an unusual mechanism of action that is 49x more active than the clinical drug cisplatin in 809 cancer cell lines

http://www.targetedonc.com/articles/more-powerful-than-cisplatin-preclinical-cancer-drug-study-shows

Dr Matthew Gibson has been awarded the 2015 'PAT Young Talent Award' during the 13th Polymers for Advanced Technologies conference in HongZhou, China. The award is sponsered by Wiley and Polymers for Advanced Technologies and also ACS Materials and Interfaces. Matt was selected by a panel following lectures from the shortlisted candidates from around the world, after being nominated.

Many congratulations to Paul Kerby for the Waldner Teaching Prize

Many congratulations to Azzedine Dabo for the Waldner Teaching Prize