Gibson Group News

Our latest paper has been accepted in RSC Advances. This paper describes our attempts to specfically identifiy lectins associated with bacterial infection and virulence. Lectins are proteins which bind glycans, but are famously promiscuous - any lectin can bind a range of sugars, and vice versa, making sensing them challenging. Current methods rely on protemics (e.g. expensive mass spec) or antibody based strategies - neitehr of these are useful for point of care diagnostics. Here we take an approach inspired by Tongues - these only have 5 different inputs, but can discriminate between a range of tastes by a combination of multiplexing (measuring relative response of each input) and training. Using just 3 simple monosaccharide surfaces we could profile and identify between 5 lectins which all 'bind' galactose. This includes the cholera toxin and a surrogate for ricin - a potential biological warefare agent.

Read the paper here:

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/ra/c5ra08857g#!divAbstract

Discrimination between Lectins with Similar Specificities by Ratiometric Profiling of Binding to Glycosylated Surfaces; A Chemical ‘Tongue’ Approach

Matt has written a perspective in TheConversation - a online, indpendant sources of news and views from academics (and other experts).

https://theconversation.com/frogs-and-fish-can-help-us-learn-how-to-freeze-humans-42448

His article is entitled 'Frogs and fish can help us learn how to freeze human'. The aim of this was to highlgiht how we can learn from how Nature survives in extreme cold environments - the so called Extremophiles - to enable us to improve cell and tissue storage. Modern medicine is hugely dependant upon transplantation tissue (with blood and bone marrow being the most famous, probably). However, this tissue is hard to store; in the same manner than freezing food extends its shelf-life, but it is often less palatable post-thawing. The article is intended to simulate discussion into this field, and also show the wider public how fundemental science ('why does water turn to ice') underpins new technological advancements.

As part of his appearance at the Cheltenham festival of Science, Matt was interviewed by BBC radio Gloucester. Tune in later this week to hear the interview. (including the important of a Gin and Tonic to understand the challenges of cryopreserving human tissue..)

Our latest paper has been published in the RSC Journal Polymer Chemistry. 'Thermoresponsive, well-defined, poly(vinyl alcohol) co-polymers'

This papers builds on our previous work in the design and application of biologically-responsive polymers. Most responsive polymers are based on polymers which are assumed to be biocompatiable, but are not used clinically. PVA (poly(vinylalcohol)) however, is widely used in healthcare settings such as eye drops, or pharmaceutical coatings. Therefore, we set out to modify this to make it environmentally responsive (in this case temperatur). Using RAFT polymerization, we made a library of well-defined PVA's and then modifed them with ester side chains, enabling us to precisely control the transition temperature. We think that by basing this on such a well-known and biocompatible polymer we might be able to aid translation of responsive polymers

Read the paper here;

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/py/c5py00775e#!divAbstract

Matt Gibson gave a lecture at the Cheltenham Festival of Science (one of the biggest such festivals in the UK). His talk was entitled 'How to Freeze a Human'. In this, he explored the concept of cryopreservation - freezing of tissue and the challenges around this. This included a discussion of just how complex water and ice are - including demonstrations from smashing frozen bananas to using a hammer to nucleate (promote) ice formation...

Robert Deller (Now PDRA in Bristol) won the Chemistry Department Prize for best Thesis, at the annual postgraduate sympoisum. His Thesis was entitled 'The investigation and application of ice recrystalisation inhibitors as novel cryoprotectants for biological materials'. Rob was co-supervised by Dr Daniel Mitchell (Warwick Medical School) and Dr Manu Vatish (Now Oxford).

See the advert here

http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=63580

On Saturday, May 9th, Matt Gibson's interview with 'Futureproof' - a dedicated science show on NewstalkFM was broadcast. During this, Matt discussed some of the challenges associated with cryopreservation - the freezing of human tissues and cells and how extreomphile organisms survive being frozen. Its relevance to Star Wars (....) was also a topic.

This was a lead-up to Matt's talk at the cheltenham festival of science (2nd June).

https://newstalk.ie/futureproof