Departmental news
Technology Award for Matt Gibson
Dr Matthew Gibson has been awarded the life science prize at the Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technology technology competition. http://tinyurl.com/kmdw8pq
Poster Prize for Caroline Biggs
Caroline Biggs in the GibsonGroup won the prize for best poster presentation at the 13th European Summer Course on Glycosciences. Her winning poster was entitled 'Polymer Functionalised Surfaces for Microarray Applications'.
GibsonGroup in Chemical Science
The GibsonGroup describe glycopolymers that selectively target the Cholera toxin and may provide a non-antibiotic tool to combat infectious diseases
Lewandowski Group in JACS Spotlights
Lewandowski group in collaboration with Ladizhansky and Brown (U. of Guelph) groups have characterised site-specific molecular motions of a 7-helix membrane protein within a lipid bilayer using solid-state NMR measurements. Read the article in JACS.
Gibson Group in Nature Communications
The Gibson Group, in collaboration with the Medical School, have demonstrated a new way to cryopreserve donor blood using a synthetic polymer which mimics Antifreeze Proteins found in Arctic Cod.
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
Waking up a silent metabolic pathway results in the discovery of new gamma-aminobutyrate (GABA)-derived ureas
Research, led by the Corre group, has exploited their insight into bacterial regulatory mechanisms that control natural product biosynthesis to inactivate a key transcriptional repressor gene. Consequently, a normally silent pathway was constitutively expressed in the mutant strain and novel natural products were produced, isolated and structurally characterised. This work, published as an open access edge article in Chemical Science, represents a powerful strategy for the discovery of new natural products by rational manipulation of pathway-specific regulatory elements.
Misread heart muscle gene a new clue to risk of sudden cardiac death
Scientists have discovered that a drug which increases the risk of sudden cardiac death interacts with mistranslated protein-coding genes present in heart muscle.
Anticancer metallohelices
Scott group researchers report in Chemical Science (Open Access) that some of their helical metal flexicate complexes have high activity and selectivity against a range of cancer cell lines including cisplatin-resistant strains. The mechanism involves arresting cells in the G2/mitosis phase, and DNA binding is not necessarily involved.
Greg Challis awarded Royal Society Wolfson Award
The Royal Society has announced the appointment of 22 new Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders including Professor Greg Challis of the Department of Chemistry.