News

Congratulations to PhD student Becky Wills, selected over more than 100 nominations as a winner of the PG Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence

Professor Rachel O’Reilly wins the 2012 IUPAC-Samsung Young Polymer Scientist Award.

The O’Connor group has developed a computation which simultaneously doubles the resolution, sensitivity and mass accuracy of Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry at no extra cost.

At a celebration lunch today, the achievements of the Warwick Chemistry Class of 2012 were recognised by the Department. This year's prize winners were:

In their Angewandte Communication P. R. Unwin, J. V. Macpherson, et al. combined high-resolution electrochemical imaging, micro-Raman, and electron-microscopy data to demonstrate that spatially heterogeneous electron-transfer kinetics correlates directly with the local density of electronic states of polycrystalline boron-doped diamond (pBDD). A Multi-Microscopy Approach allowed electrochemical reaction rates to be linked to the corresponding dopant levels in pBDD. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201204563/abstract for more details.

Costantini and collaborators report in JACS on dispersions of HBC, an analogue to small graphene flakes.

The Gibson Group in collaboration with Pathologists from the Johannes Guttenburg University (Mainz) have published two studies onto the role of nanoparticle size and coating on their interactions with cells. The aim is to address questions regarding nanoparticle toxicity (if any). Focus was placed on cells from the vasculature (circulation). These cells are often negleted but any injected drug delivery system will encounter several kilometers of these. Several particle formations were found to enter endothelial cells associated with the blood-brain barrier - perhaps the most challenging biological barrier to drug delivery.

This work is published in Biomacromolecules: Read here and Particle Fibre Toxicology: Read here

(Particle Fibre Tox is No 1 Tox. Journal in ISI Citation reports, publishing Primary Research)

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.

Nanodiamonds have been found to help loosen crystallized fat from surfaces in a project led by Dr Andrew Marsh at University of Warwick. The tiny carbon particles transform the ability of surfactants to shift dirt in cold water, findings that could bring eco friendly low temperature laundry cycles.

The research is published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces and highlighted in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, 26 June.

Nanodiamond Promotes Surfactant-Mediated Triglyceride Removal from a Hydrophobic Surface at or below Room Temperature Xianjin Cui, Xianping Liu, Andrew S. Tatton, Steven P. Brown, Haitao Ye, and Andrew Marsh ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/am300560z

Team Stavros, in collaboration with Dr Martin Paterson at Heriot-Watt University, publishes work in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. They intricately map the ultrafast photochemistry occurring in aminobenzene (aniline), demonstrating that it is an excellent model for better understanding highly efficient mechanisms in the DNA base guanine which prevent toxic UV induced photodecomposition. Read the article here.