Gibson Group News

In a feature article in Chemistry World - the Royal Society of Chemistry's monthly Magazine, work by the Gibson Group on synthetic alternatives to Antifreeze Proteins is highlighted.

Read the article here:

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/04/antifreeze-proteins

A collaborative paper with JGU Mainz and EPFL Lausanne has been accepted for publication in Biomaterials Science.

This paper describes the interactions of a series of polymer-coated gold nanoparticles with the blood-brain barrier (BBB). THe BBB is perhaps the most challenging biological barrier in medicine; the failure of many treatments for neurodegerative diseases is not due to their lack of efficacy, but rather their inability to traverse the BBB and reach the site of action. Here we compare the uptake of nanoparticles into cells from the outside of the BBB and how this correlates with the ability to pass through the BBB, using a complex co-culture in vitro model. The use of gold removed the need for non-qunatitive fluorescence labels and allowed us to track uptake by ICP-MS - Science City funded piece of equipment capable of parts per billion level detection of gold atoms.

Read the paper here

A collaborative paper with Besra (Birmingham) and Fullam (Warwick Life Science) has been accepted in the RSC Journal J. Mater. Chem. B.; Materials for Medicine and Biology.

This paper shows some of our early efforts to create new tools for glycobiology - the science of investigating how carbohydrate (sugars) direct biological signalling processes, which are crucial in infection, cancer and fertility. Standard anlytical tools for measuring carbohydrate-protein interactions rely on 'big' equipment such as Mass Spectrometry and Surface Plasmon Resonance which are not cheap nor high throughput. We show here that we can use gold nanoparticles to 'illuminate' carbohydrate binding proteins in assays to measure their activity. This is both cheap, scalable and most importanlty compatible with a simple mobile phone! A photograph is all that is required to measure biological activity.

Read the paper here

Our paper describing how a simple synthetic polymer, PVA, can reproduce the most desirable property of antifreeze glycoproteins - inhibition of ice crystal growth (recrystalization). The paper is published in Biomacromolecules

Read the asap version here

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bm400217j

A review article co-authored with Rachel O'Reilly has been accepted in Chem. Soc. Rev., entitled. "To Aggregate, or not tot Aggregate? Considerations in the Design and Application of Polymeric Thermally-Responsive Nanoparticles"

This review article brings together observations from a vareity of thermally-responsive nanoparticles, where the corona contains the responsive unit. In particular, focus is placed on linking the observable macroscopic outcomes of the transition (collapse and/or aggregation) with the underlying transitions.

DOI:10.1039/C3CS60035A read the paper here.

Richard is joining the team as part of his MOAC miniproject. He will work on a project based on diagnosiing infectious diseases using a mobile phone.

Cecillia Ieong (formally Dove and O'Reilly Groups @ Warwick) joins us as a postdoc from Monday.

See the webpage for details:

11th March, Burlington House, Royal Society of Chemistry, London.

1 day glycoscience meeting for early-career researchers. All fields and backgrounds are welcome, as long as your interested in glycosciences.