Three new EPSRC Open Fellowships awarded to University of Warwick researchers
Prof James Sprittles, Dr Fredrik Schaufelberger and Dr. Alex Baker have been awarded exciting EPSRC Open Fellowships, each worth over £1M, to progress their research over the next five years.
The EPSRC Open and Open Plus Fellowships are widely regarded as one of the most prestigious career fellowships funded by UKRI and is highly competitive. Three University of Warwick researchers, one from the Warwick Mathematics Institute and two from the Department of Chemistry, have recently secured Open Fellowships; one to advance our understanding of droplet dynamics in the environment, one to create new types of biomaterials and a third to develop antibody systems for diagnostics that are robust, low-cost and effective.
Professor James Sprittles, Warwick Mathematics Institute
Project Title: A Modelling Approach to Drop Collisions and their Collective Behaviour: From Nano- to Cloud-Scale Dynamics (UKRI3193)
Project Description: When two tiny water drops approach each other, a nanometre-thin layer of gas is trapped between them. Whether this film collapses or not decides the outcome: the drops may bounce, merge, or fragment. That single event seems simple, but repeated billions of times it controls processes such as whether droplets grow into raindrops in clouds, shaping weather and climate, or how pesticides deposit on crops or how medicines are delivered in sprays.
Conventional simulation tools fail at the nanoscale where these gas and vapour films dictate the physics. Therefore, this Fellowship will develop new models that embed nanoscale effects into drop-collision dynamics, leading to open-source simulation frameworks for collisions, which will be fed into weather and spray models.
James said: “We’re very excited to begin the work of this Open Fellowship, it’s an interesting mix of modelling, simulation, and multiphase flows at the interface of physics, computation, and real-world application.”
“It’s incredible to think that the behaviour of a nanometre-thin layer of gas trapped between colliding droplets controls some of the most important multiphase flows on Earth and we really hope to see this work feed into weather and spray models, in collaboration with project partners including the Met Office, NCAR, and Syngenta.”
Dr Fredrik Schaufelberger, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Project Title: Mechanically Interlocked Polyamide Biomaterials (UKRI3361)
Project Description: This 5-year Fellowship will support Dr Schaufelberger in using state-of-the-art methods for mechanical bond synthesis to access an entirely new category of mechanically interlocked materials (MIMats). Mechanical bonds in materials (rather than chemical bonds) are well-established and give the materials better properties and makes them more responsive to stimuli. However, biomedical applications of these materials are much less explored.
Hence, Fredrik will use innovative chemical synthesis to try to make a new sort of interlocked material tailor-made to work well with biological systems. This new material class will then be explored for classical biomaterial applications such as drug delivery (i.e. to release therapeutics at the right site of the body at the right time) and regenerative medicine (i.e. a material helping the body heal wounds and restore lost tissue).
The hope is that the unique molecular architecture of these materials will give them major advantages over traditional systems in these applications and lead to better and more accurate solutions to these healthcare challenges.
Fredrik said: “I am incredibly grateful for this fellowship from the EPSRC, which will allow me and my team to explore our wildest and most ambitious ideas about creating entirely new types of biomaterials.
“This is a highly interdisciplinary project that is perfectly suited to Warwick’s core strengths and competences, so I am particularly excited and happy that my team can conduct the project at this superb university, where we moved just over a year ago! This is the type of chance you don’t get too many of in your career, so I am naturally extremely excited for all the fun science that comes next!”
Dr Alex Baker, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Project Title: Beyond Antibodies: Cell-Free Synthetic Evolution to Discover Antibody Biomimetics
Project Description: Every 5 minutes, 50 people are bitten by a snake worldwide, four will be permanently disabled and one will die. All specific treatments for snake envenomation, a World Health Organization (WHO) neglected tropical disease (NTD), use animal-derived antibody-based antivenoms. However, they suffer from severe disadvantages, such as high cost, low stability, and complicated manufacture, excluding millions from equitable healthcare.
To overcome these limitations, this EPSRC Open Plus Fellowship will pioneer “Synthetic Evolution” - bringing together in vitro synthetic chemistry and in silico machine learning for the discovery of novel cell-free synthetic antibodies, using snake venoms as targets for establishing this technology. Molecules will be synthesised and tested in vitro; and fed into machine learning models for molecular refinement creating a feedback loop.
This process will enable fast, accessible, flexible explorations of the chemical space beyond the biological dogma of current antibody-focused snakebite research - democratising biomolecular research for therapeutics and diagnostics.
This fellowship also seeks to address that snakebite is an under publicised disease. The Plus component (30%) enables Dr. Baker to expand his substantial advocacy and public engagement (PE) in neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and physical sciences communities.
Alex said: “This is a really exciting time to be researching snakebite as a neglected tropical disease, so I am so pleased that EPSRC saw the potential of my group’s work. With this fellowship my group, the Baker Humanitarian Chemistry Group (BHCG), are making the argument that chemists can improve on nature by making synthetic antibody-like systems for diagnostics and therapeutics that are robust, low-cost, and effective.
“We will do this cutting-edge work in collaboration with colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark, University of East Anglia, and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, bringing together the latest approaches in chemical synthesis, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence to combat the pressing problem of snakebite.
“However, neglected tropical diseases are not just a science problem they are a public engagement problem too. So, alongside the research we have a comprehensive plan, working with the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri) and Warwick Institute for Engagement, to engage people nationally and internationally for the benefit of humanity."
Congratulating the awardees, Professor Mike Ward, Vice Provost and Chair of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine, University of Warwick said: “Huge congratulations to James, Fredrik, and Alex for these prestigious awards, which will really act as springboards for their independent careers at Warwick.
“These projects showcase how key developments transcend normal disciplinary subject boundaries and draw on different areas of the SEM universe to generate exciting real-world applications: from using mathematical tools to understand formation of clouds for climate modelling, to bringing together synthetic chemistry and machine learning to find new therapeutics for snake envenomation, to using unusual, interlocked molecules as new agents for helping to accelerate wound healing.
“The combination of far-sighted imaginativeness and potential applications in these three projects provide inspiring examples of how apparently esoteric research can help make the world a better place.”
ENDS
Research Fellow positions are currently open for:
Project UKRI3193 - https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQA311/research-fellow-x2-111127-1225
Project UKRI3361 - https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQB928/research-fellow-in-supramolecular-chemistry-111217-0126
Notes to Editors
For more information please contact:
Matt Higgs, PhD | Media & Communications Officer (Warwick Press Office)
Email: Matt.Higgs@warwick.ac.uk | Phone: +44(0)7880 175403
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