Gibson Group News
Environmental sustainability success! Bronze LEAF awards for the Gibson Group Labs
The Gibson Group labs in Chemistry and The Medical School have been awarded with a Bronze LEAF award for the 2021/22 academic year.
Following a successful portfolio submission and inspection we were provided with the following feedback "The Gibson lab is a fantastic example of a lab that is working with the support of the PI to consider sustainability across every aspect of their work. During the audit it was great to hear that LEAF has encouraged lab users to implement some of the sustainability practices that have been discussed before but never implemented. There are some great examples of best practice, which could be shared with others outside of the lab, including the successful annual inventory check."
In recognition of our success at implementing environmentally friendly protocols, Caroline Biggs has been invited to speak the the University-Wide LEAF promotion and celebration event on 11th October.
Find out more about the LEAF initiative and how to get involved here https://warwick.ac.uk/sustainability/environment/gettinginvolved/sustainablelabs/
Degradable Macromolecular Cryoprotectants Published in ACS MacroLetters
We have previously developed maromolecular cryoprotectants, based on polyampholytes (polymers with cationic/anionic groups) which are remarkable cryoprotectants - they protect cells from damage during freezing, leading to more, healthier cells being recovered. However, our previous work has been focussed on all-carbon backboned polymers which are not intrinsically degradable. In our latest work, we collaborated with Prof Julien Nicolas (Paris) to develop polyampholytes containing ester bonds in their backbone, which can be hydrolysed. This was achieved using radical ring-opening copolymerization, enabling convention controlled radical methods to introduce esters (instead of the normal C-C bonds). The resulting polymers were shown to enhance the cryopreservation of cell monolayers - a very challenging cryopreservation scenario.
Read the paper here:
Potent ice recrystallisation inhibitors based on Phenyl Alanine Published
We are very interested in understand how ice binding proteins function, but also discovering the design rules to let us obtain synthetic mimics. Macromolecular mimics are now established, but obtaining structure-function relationships is challenging due to e.g. dispersity, and the computation cost of modelling large flexible polymers. In our latest work, as part of our collaboration with the Sosso Group, we discover that phenyl alanine (the amino acid) is a potent ice recrystallisaiton inhibitor. Modification of different parts of the molecule helped us identify the key motifs, including the need for hydrophobicity.
This work is published in ChemComm and is can be read here:
Lateral Flow Glyco-Assay Demonstration of Concept Published
With our partners Iceni Diagnostics, we have been exploring lateral flow diagnostics (LFDs), and in particular replacing the need for antibodies with glycans and polymers. We have previously demonstrated that glycans can be used for detection, and in a flow-through device but we had not constructed a complete device with glycans on the stationary phase (the paper) AND mobile phase (gold nanoparticles). Our latest work, published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, shows a proof of concept that a 'lateral flow glyco assay', where only glycans are used for detection is possible. We fine-tune the polymer linkers and nanoparticle size, showing how these can modulate the signal outputs, without needing to tune the 'binder' (the glycan) - this is a significant benefit, when trying to ensure devices are selective. We show this using two lectins (carbohydrate binding proteins) and assemble complete devices for lectin detection. We think this has huge potential spanning pandemic preparedness to tools for fundamental glycoscience.
Read the paper here
COVID-19 detection in a rapid glycan-based diagnostic device
Our latest work, investigating SARS-COV-2 glycan interactions, and translation to diagnostic technology has been published in ACS sensors. Last year we discovered that the SARS-COV-2 spike protein could bind sialic acids (glycans found on cell surfaces and in the respiratory tract) using our glyconanoparticle platform. With our partners at Iceni Diagnostics and UHCW (Coventry Hospital) we integrated this into a flow-through device - similar to a lateral flow device - where the sample is dried, rather than captured on a test line. Using this, we show that primary swab samples of positive/negative patients can be identified correctly by this technology, and demonstrating the principle that rapid (eg lateral flow) devices that currently use antibodies as the detection agents, can be modified to use glycans instead. We also show that the spike proteins from variants of concern can still be detected in this format. Whilst still a prototype and this shows that glycan recognition can be deployed for infection monitoring and we are actively pursuing this technology.
Read the paper here; <span class="hlFld-Title">Glycan-Based Flow-Through Device for the Detection of SARS-COV-2</span>
Press release here. https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/alternative_to_antibodies
Selectively targetting cancerous cells with nanoparticles by glycan metabolic labelling
We have a large program to explore the use of glycans for sensing and delivery applications. All mammalian cells are covered with glycans (the glycocalyx) which is responsible for a huge range of roles, from signalling to sites for pathogen-binding. We have previously explored how we can use metabolic oligosaccharide engineering to install non-natural glycans (sugars) onto cell surfaces, allowing us to 'do chemistry' on the cell surface in a bio-orthogonal manner. In this work, led by Prof Ben Boyd (Monash University), we explore how different cell types take up and display a cyclo-alkene (suitable for 'click' chemistry) bearing glycan, and use these differences to capture nanoparticles (with azides) onto the surface of the cells, leading to internalisation. Cells with the fastest growth rate processed the glycan faster, and hence lead to more nanoparticle capture. As cancerous cells are often characterized by increased metabolic rates, this may offer an opportunity to improve the targetting of nano-therapeutics by the highly selective formation of a covalent bond, rather than relying on unspecific physicochemical properties or targetting ligands.
Read the work here!
Matt awarded the 2021 McBain Medal!
Matt has been awarded the 2021 McBain Medal from the Society for Chemical Industry and Royal Society of Chemistry. This award is to "honour an early career researcher or technologist who has made a meritorious contribution to colloid and interface science." Matt was particularly pleased that he can still be called Early Career. There were will be a special symposia late in 2021 where Matt will receive the medal and give a lecture.
This medal represents the massive contributions of past and current team members which are too numerous to list. Thanks go to UoW and both Department of Chemistry and Medical School for allowing the GibsonGroup to spread their work over both Departments.
SARS-COV-2 detection paper now published in ACS Central Science
There is an urgent, global, need for new therapeutic, vaccine and diagnostic interventions to address the COVID-19 challenge. Current diagnostics are mostly based upon PCR (polymerase chain reaction) methods where the genetic material of the SARS-COV-2 virus is isolated and sequenced. A challenge with this method is that significant infrastructure and trained personnel are needed, and the results are not instant. In this work, conducted in collaboration with Iceni Diagnostics (and MANY UoW colleagues) we hijacked a pregnancy test set up, to enable rapid detection. Crucial to this was the identification that sialic acids (a type of cell-surface glycan) bind the SARS-COV_2 spike protein. By incorporating sialic acids onto the ends of polymers, immobilized onto gold nanoparticles we made a paper-based tool, enabling rapid detection of the spike protein, a virus mimic and also a virus engineered to 'look like' SARS-COV-2. This method may enable ultra rapid and low cost screening to identify individuals who carry the virus, to triage for the PCR testing. We are actively pursuing the development of this technology.
Read the paper here