News

Congratulations to Rhiann Andrew, a second year PhD student in the Chaplin Group, who was awarded the RSC Metallomics Poster Prize at the Dalton 2014 conference for her work on NHC-based Rhodium Macrocycles.

Many congratulations to James Silk, an MChem with Industrial Training student, who has been awarded a Salters' Graduate Prize 2014, one of only 5 awarded to Chemistry students nationally.

His personal tutor, Peter Scott said, "James is an outstanding scientist, excelling in all subjects, but he seems to have a real feel for synthetic chemistry. His experimental work is impeccable, his writing is insightful and his motivation levels are truly inspiring. One to watch."

Former Warwick Chemistry researcher Dr Suzanne Dilly will, it was announced today, lead a new company ValiSeek Limited, a risk-sharing joint venture company between Tangent Reprofiling Limited, a member of the SEEK group, and ValiRx Plc, the life science company with a focus on cancer diagnostics and therapeutics for personalised medicine. ValiSeek has acquired a worldwide exclusive licence from Tangent to progress the drug VAL401, discovery of which was aided by Warwick Chemistry’s Magic Tag® technology, through its remaining preclinical development and towards Phase II trials for the treatment of lung cancer and other oncology indications.

Many congratulations to Professor Peter Sadler, FRS who has been appointed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as an EPSRC RISE Fellow. The RISE scheme is aimed at Recognising Inspirational Scientists and Engineers working in the UK. The full press release can be found at: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2014/Pages/riseawards.aspx

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

An evolutionary study of enzymes that produce and deactivate Vitamin A suggests that Vitamin A was “invented” not by animals, as generally thought, but by cyanobacteria. This is a surprising finding with respect to standard models of evolution. Vitamin A is medically important and cyanobacteria are ecologically very significant so the research may have impact both on healthcare and on the environment (Millard, Scanlan,* Gallagher, Marsh & Taylor* Mol. Biosyst. 2014)

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. 

The Gibson Group, in collaboration with the Medical School, have demonstrated a new way to cryopreserve donor blood using a synthetic polymer which mimics Antifreeze Proteins found in Arctic Cod.

Read the paper here

Professor Sebastien Perrier, Department of Chemistry, has received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, has announced the appointment of 21 new holders. Professor Mohan Balasubramanian, Warwick Medical School, has also received the prestigious award this year.

The newly appointed award holders are working on a wide range of projects. Professor Sebastien Perrier’s work will focus on Functional soft nanotubes from molecular engineering.

Research carried out in the Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group lead by Prof Unwin recently appeared as a JACS highlighted communication. The study by Paul Kirkman et al utilised the electrochemical patterning of diazonium compounds to chemically functionalise sp2 carbon materials in a systematic and controlled way. This microscale modification method can be particularly attractive as a means to generate a band gap in graphene opening up the prospects of graphene-based electronic devices.

'Spatial and Temporal Control of the diazonium modification of sp2 carbon surfaces', Paul M. Kirkman, Aleix G. Güell,* Anatolii S. Cuharuc, and Patrick R. Unwin*, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2014, 136 (1), pp 36-39

DOI: 10.1021/ja410467e

Wishing a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all our Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, Staff and friends of the Department of Chemistry.

In this fun video, Teaching Fellow Nick Barker uses a number of items, including the festive favourite Brussels sprout, to show different types of fluorescence.

Find out more about the Outreach activities in the Department of Chemistry.

A new family of organic nanotubes was reported in a recent article in Nature Communications. The group of Sébastien Perrier, in collaboration with Professor Kate Jolliffe at the University of Sydney, have designed cyclic peptide / polymer conjugates that can assemble into tubular structures based on the stacking of the cyclic peptides, and provide a tube with a sub-nm internal diameter. Attached to each of the cyclic peptides are two different types of polymers, which tend to de-mix and form a shell for the tube with two faces, and form Janus nanotubes (after the Roman god Janus who is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and the past).