News Library
€1.7m ERC grant for Seb Perrier
Sebastien Perrier has been awarded a €1.7 million Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council for his work on tubular supramolecular polymers. These structures, pioneered by the Perrier group, are based on the assembly of cyclic peptide/polymer conjugates into nanotubes, held together by supramolecular interactions. They have a range of unique physical and chemical properties, and the ERC grant will allow the group to develop these systems further as drug delivery vectors. Recent work has shown that they can act efficiently to deliver anticancer drugs to cancer cells and enhance the drug activity, and the 5 years’ ERC funding will support further studies in this area.
€5 Million in ERC grants Awarded
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.
Two new Centres for Doctoral Training
Warwick Chemistry has played a lead role in securing funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for 2 new Centres for Doctoral training, in Molecular Analytical Science and Diamond Science and Technology, as part of the recently announced UK's largest investment in postgraduate training in engineering and physical sciences. The Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts, announced the funding of over seventy new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), spread across 24 UK universities on 22nd November.
For further information please visit:
http://onlinepressoffice.tnrcommunications.co.uk/universities-funding/video
Dr Rebecca Notman Awarded Royal Society University Research Fellowship
Dr Rebecca Notman has been awarded a prestigious 5-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship starting October 2012 to pursue a research project on “Modelling the Lipid Layers of the Human Skin Barrier”.
Nanodiamonds bring back sparkle to cleaning
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
University of Warwick & partners awarded £1.4 million in national solar energy programme
The University of Warwick is a key part of a consortium that has just been awarded £1.4 Million by a new national programme designed to develop the next generation of solar energy harvesting technology.
The UK’s Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has awarded the £1.4 million to a consortium that includes The University of Warwick; the companies Kurt Lesker, Asylum Research, New World Solar, and Molecular Solar, and Imperial College London. Together they will work on the development of Prototype High Efficiency Multi-Junction Organic Solar Cells.
Professor Tim Jones from the University of Warwick said:
“We are working with solar cells made from organic semiconductor materials which offer the prospect of very low cost manufacture of lightweight, flexible cells. They are made from sustainable materials and can be deployed as flexible sheets that could be used for a variety of applications including: a solar powered mobile phone charger that’s rolls up into a shape as small as the size of a pen, micro-lights that can be added to clothing, and a detachable sun-shade for automobile windscreens that powers a small integral fan to circulate air and cool the interior of the car when parked in direct sunlight.”
Peter Ballantyne from Molecular Solar, a spin-out company from the University of Warwick, which will be developing this new technology said:
“The low cost and flexibility of this new technology will lead to new applications that will further accelerate the growth of the solar power market, which has seen 40%/year growth over the last 10 years. Just one significant opportunity in consumer applications is the area of mobile phone chargers where over 1.3 billion units a year are produced.”
In total fifteen British businesses and seven universities will share £5 million of government funding from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to enable them to research the use of novel nanoscale technologies to develop the next generation of solar energy harvesting.
Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board said:
“These projects will help to position British businesses to exploit the growing global demand for solar energy harvesting technologies – and in the process help grow the British economy – while at the same time provide sustainable energy solutions for the UK. The projects are great examples of how to transfer commercially-focused research into the business community.”
David Delpy, Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council said:
“This is the first example of Nanoscience research funding from the Research Councils being directly pulled through to application funding with the Technology Strategy Board via a stage-gated funding route. This approach actively supports economic growth whilst helping to solve one of society's greatest challenges.”
For further information please contact:
Professor Tm Jones University of Warwick Tel: +44 (0)2476 528265
Email: 
t.s.jones@warwick.ac.uk
Peter Dunn, Head of Communications
Communications Office, University House,
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 8UW, United Kingdom
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)24 76 523708 Mobile/Cell: +44 (0)7767 655860
PR34 25th March 2011
Bruker and Warwick Chemistry announce collaboration in developing extreme performance mass spectrometry
COVENTRY, United Kingdom--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bruker Daltonics announced today the establishment of a long-term collaborative programme for developing both applications and fundamental instrument technology in the area of extreme resolution mass spectrometry.
Business Wire - The new Bruker solariX is the ideal instrument for the analysis of very complex mixtures in top-down proteomics, ...
Building on over 14 years of experience in high performance mass spectrometry at the Department of Chemistry at Warwick, the University’s recent acquisition of both the new Bruker solariX™ 12 Tesla FTMS system and the maXis™ UHR-TOF system again puts the department at the forefront of technology for high performance mass spectrometry. At the core of the new instruments are dramatic improvements, up to an order of magnitude, in previous performance standards. These advances help address the University’s most challenging analyses including very complex mixtures in applications such as chemistry, medicinal discovery, protein interactions and petroleomics.
The collaboration is unusual in that it embraces not only topical applications innovation but also fundamental instrument development, the latter headed by Warwick Professor Peter O’Connor, who recently arrived from Boston University, and is one of the world’s most accomplished FTMS instrument development scientists. “We are very excited to be able to benefit from Peter’s ideas, and have arranged a technical fast-track for his developments to appear in our FTMS products,” commented Dr. Michael Schubert, Executive Vice President for R&D at Bruker Daltonics.
Professor Peter Sadler, Head of Chemistry at the University, whose research interests focus on metals in biology and medicine, the design and mechanism of action of metallodrugs, especially the role of proteins in metal-induced signal transduction said: “In my field state-of-the-art analysis of metal speciation holds the key to major breakthroughs in understanding both how metal ions control natural biological processes, and how metal complexes can be designed as novel therapeutic agents. Moreover, this new Bruker mass spec equipment, and the associated collaboration, will allow our newly established EPSRC Warwick Centre for Analytical Science to compete strongly at the forefront of the field.”
“We are delighted that Professors Sadler and O’Connor, who both have outstanding track records in the design and implementation of cutting-edge mass spectrometry, have chosen Bruker as a supplier and collaborative partner. It is especially gratifying to see real instrument development receiving such an energetic renewal in the UK,” commented Dr. Ian Sanders, Executive Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Bruker Daltonics.
The solariX and maXis will be highlighted at the 18th International Mass Spectrometry Conference (www.imsc-bremen-2009.de) in Bremen, Germany from August 30 to September 4, 2009. For more information on IMSC 2009 and related Bruker Daltonics activities, please visit www.bdal.com/imsc.
ABOUT BRUKER DALTONICS
For more information about Bruker Daltonics and Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ: BRKR - News), please visit www.bdal.com and www.bruker.com.
New uses for old drugs
The technique, developed at the University of Warwick, enables researchers to investigate potential new uses for drugs which are already approved for clinical use.
Tangent Reprofiling, set up as a subsidiary of the immunology company PepTcell, and based in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, has now acquired the intellectual property which will allow it to make use of the technique.
The idea of ‘reprofiling’ drugs is not unique to Tangent – perhaps the most famous example is the drug Viagra, which was originally developed to combat high blood pressure and angina. However this particular technique allows researchers to assess a wide landscape of current drugs in a cost and time efficient manner, using a combination of established chemical genomics techniques and proprietary chemistry.
Dr Suzanne Dilly, Tangent’s new CEO, explained, “Most drugs work by interacting with proteins in the body. By using the technology platform developed by a2sp Ltd, we can look for unexpected interactions between a drug and different proteins and then suggest potential new uses for that drug.
“One advantage of reprofiling drugs is that they have already gone through the rigorous tests required before a drug can be cleared for clinical use, a process which can take several years.”
Wills group part of £5M consortium to look at hydrogen for green energy
Professor Wills is a member of a 14 member consortium of academics in 13 universities which has recently been awarded a grant of ca. £5m over 4 years from EPSRC (EP/G01244X/1) to support research into the development of hydrogen as an energy vector. The programme will include research programmes into chemical and electrical generation of hydrogen using sustainable methods, as well as the integration of these processes into the overall hydrogen cycle, the conversion of hydrogen and by products into feedstocks and fuels, and the study of the socio-econmic implications of the hydrogen energy economy. Scientists in the consortium span departments from right across engineering, physical and social sciences. In addition to Warwick these are StAndrews, Newcastle, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Heriot-Watt, Brunel, Leeds, Imperial College, Manchester, Cardiff and Strathclyde. An important component of the work of the group, which will be known as the 'SUPERGEN: Delivery of S ustainable Hydrogen' consortium will be to increase the public profile of hydrogen energy research through Knowledge Transfer and outreach events.
further details please contact Martin Wills (M.Wills@warwick.ac.uk) or John Irvine (jtsi@st-and,ac.uk)
Tim Jones' team part of £2.5M grant on spintronics
Commonly used industrial dyes hold the key to advancing the new science of 'spintronics', say researchers working on a new a £2.5 million study.
Spintronics holds out the possibility of a range of future applications, such as quantum computing, which aims to deliver secure, low-power computers capable of processing much larger quantities of data than is currently possible. Scientists believe that sensitive new biosensors able to analyse blood or urine samples rapidly and accurately could also be developed as a result of this work.
The new Basic Technology grant awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will support research into the magnetic properties of metal atoms found in industrial dyes such as Metal Phthalocyanine (MPc), a blue dye used in clothing. The team from the London Centre for Nanotechnology - a joint venture between Imperial College London and University College London - and the University of Warwick believes that finding ways to control and exploit these molecules will allow spintronics to be applied in new ways.