Gibson Group News

Matt Gibson has been awarded the MacroGroup UK Young Researchers Medal for 2012. See list of previous winners here. He will give his award lecture and receive the prize at APME conference in Durham (his alma mater) later this year.

Rob has been awarded a Transatlantic fellowship by the UoW to allow him to particupate in a research project in New York later this year.

Congratulations!

This paper describes a study into the structural features required to mimic the most important property of antifreeze (glyco)proteins - their ability to inhibit ice crystal growth. Here we try to explain why some poly-hydroxylated polymers display signficant activity, but others (such as oligosaccharides) have negliable activity. We also compare a large series of mono/di saccharides and show that their activity is essentially correlated with the number of OH groups in solution rather than any specifics of their structure (although small differences between sugars are well known). Here we postulate that hydrophobic domains are key components of activity.

Read the paper here: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/BM/C3BM00194F

Our paper describing how mono/oligo saccharides and synthetic polymers interact with growing ice crystals has been accepted for publication in the new high profile journal Biomaterials Science. This is part of a wider collaboration between chemistry, centre for scientific computing and the medical school. Full details to follow.

2nd Year PhD student Dan Phillips has won the prize for best poster at the recent RSC Nanoscience Symposium, held at the University of Birmingham. Congratulations.

Collaboration with Marc Gauthier @ ETH Zurich has been published in leading journal, Advanced Functional Materials. This study involved the use of > 100 polymer-protein conjugates to determine the impact of the surface-grafted polymer on the activity of the enzyme alpha-chemotrypsin as a function of polymer structure. Using a novel combination of NMR and enzymatic activity probes, it was possible to demonstrate a 'molecular sieving' effect on the surface of the protein. Interestingly, the denisty of the polymers on the surface of the protein was also show to have a strong effect on the phase (LCST) behaviour of the conjugate.

Read the paper here

Collaborative work with T. Lasser's group has been highlighted in this virtual journal, selected by the editors.

Collaborative work with Marc Gauthier (ETH Zurich) has been accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials.

The paper is entitled Molecular sieving on the surface of a protein provides protection without loss of activity.

More details to follow