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PhD opportunity in investigating bladder sensation

1 of 4 fellowships in urology placed across the city of Sheffield

The position is available in the Marie Curie Initial Training Network TRUST (Training for Urology Scientists to develop new Treatments) and will be supervised by Dr Neil McKay from the Biomedical Research Centre

The project will contribute to the systematic investigation of OABS by the TRUST consortium using a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the functional role of the bladder components. For more information visit the European Commission's Euraxess website.

Closing date is now 30 September 2010.

BMRC wins funding for mass spectrometry commercial service expansion

Professor Malcolm Clench and Dr John Bright have recently been awarded funding from the Enterprise Centre's Strategic Investment Fund to increase the BMRC's mass spectrometry commercial service.

The money will be used to employ a new member of the commercial service team, Dr Jillian Newton, who will use her time to help provide a more comprehensive analytical service for our UK and international customers. Jillian will also use her skills and expertise to help develop a novel bacterial typing database in conjunction with Dr Bright.

We would like to welcome Jillian to the department and wish the commercial service team success for the future.

PhD student wins best overall poster at Materials Knowledge Transfer Network 3rd Annual Meeting

The BMRC would like to congratulate Jeanette Gittens for winning the best overall poster at the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network 3rd Annual Meeting, held at the Church House Conference Centre in London.

Jeanette, who is funded by the EPSRC, won the award for her poster on, 'A novel biocide-free approach to the prevention of corrosion and marine biofouling', in collaboration with her co-authors R. Akid, T.J. Smith, H. Wang and J.C Earthman.

BMRC seeks early diagnosis for multiple sclerosis

Professor Nicola Woodroofe, head of the BMRC, is leading a new three-year study which, it is hoped, will lead to early diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Professor Woodroofe explains, 'Early diagnosis of MS means treatment can be started sooner, helping sufferers to stay active for longer. This study will look at whether changes in amino acids in the brain may cause the body's own immune system to attack the central nervous system.

'This study will further examine the causes and crucial early stages of multiple sclerosis. Previous studies have recently provided evidence that changed proteins may be found in people with MS - a vital clue to understanding causes of the disease.'

A grant of £105,000 has been awarded by the MS Society to fund a full-time PhD student and associated research costs over the three year period.

Ed Holloway from the MS Society, said, 'We hope this project will contribute not only to our understanding of MS, but to our ability to diagnose and combat the disease. MS is a challenging affliction and the research undertaken by Sheffield Hallam is a key step in our ongoing efforts to help sufferers.

'We have chosen the University thanks to its superb research track record and the excellent working relationship which we have developed with them.'

Funding announcement

Dr Alison Cross has gained further funding for Dr Alkistis Frentzou, a postdoctoral researcher in the BMRC, to continue her work on the function of ADAMTS13 in patients who have suffered a stroke. This means the current project, in partnership with Dr Kirsty Harkness, consultant Neurologist at the Hallamshire Hospital, has been extended until June 2009.

Dr Frentzou is also due to present her work at the prestigious 17th European Stroke Conference in Nice, France, focussing on 'Cytokine treatment reducing ADAMTS-13 expression in central nervous system cells in vitro and the possible involvement in transient ischaemic attack (TIA)'.

Two new grant awards for Dr Tom Smith

The BMRC would like to congratulate Dr Tom Smith on two recent grant awards.

The first is a study of the molecular microbiology of a combined farmed freshwater fish and hydroponic system funded by the Prime Minister's Initiative 2 Connect Research Cooperation Award scheme, via the British Council. Working with Dr Alan Ong at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia, this award will help develop partnerships between the BMRC and Dr Smith's colleagues in Malaysia.

Secondly a project promoting commercial uptake of monooxygenase biocatalysts has been funded by FROPTOP (From Renewable Platform Chemicals to Value Added Products) a joint special interest group of Chemistry Innovation, Bioscience for Business KTN and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Tom will work with a placement student to promote commercial interest and exploitation of his research work.

BMRC announces project with COLIPA

Professors Malcolm Clench and Nicola Woodroofe have been awarded £400,000 by COLIPA (The European Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association), to develop tissue models to assess for chemical sensitivities using a combined tissue imaging mass spectrometry approach together with immunological measurements.

COLIPA includes a wide range of high profile companies, including Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, GSK and L'Oreal.

The funds will support a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student for three years and the BMRC is very much looking forward to working collaboratively with COLIPA in the future.

BMRC celebrates new grant awards

The BMRC is pleased to announce the success of staff members on several new grant awards.

Dr Tom Smith, in collaboration with Warwick University, has been awarded a three year BBSRC funded grant for two postdoctoral researchers (one based in BMRC) to work on novel monooxygenase biocatalysts from the environment and the laboratory.

Dr Rowena Bunning and Professor Nicola Woodroofe have obtained a two year grant from the Multiple Sclerosis Society for a postdoctoral researcher in collaboration with Sheffield University and Bart's Hospital in London. The project will focus on the functional role of ADAM17 in multiple sclerosis pathogenesis using viral vector knockdown in vitro and in Chronic Relapsing Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (CR-EAE).

Dr Maria Blair has obtained a grant from Yorkshire Cancer Research for a pilot study on the CASC2a tumour suppressor and its role in cancer.

We would like to thank everyone involved for all their hard work in securing these grants and for maintaining the high quality of research within the centre.

PhD student poster award

The BMRC would like to congratulate Paul Trim on winning the best poster award at the recent Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Science Forum held in Glasgow. Paul's poster was entitled 'MALDI-MS Imaging of Lipids in Rat Brain Tissue with Integrated Unsupervised and Supervised Multivariant Statistical Analysis'.

Paul is currently a PhD student working on imaging MALDI mass spectrometry for direct drug distribution analysis, under the supervision of Professor Malcolm Clench.

University researchers are 'fat busters'

A research team from the BMRC, led by Dr Caroline Dalton, are going to find out why some people put on more weight than others.

Dr Dalton explains, 'We already know that food affects your mood, as does serotonin, which gives you a boost. But we also know that there are different genetic variants of serotonin receptors. Some of these differences my give you a greater tendency to put on weight or make it harder to lose weight by dieting, once you are obese. If we can demonstrate that those with a particular serotonin receptor gene variant are more resistant to the effects of dieting, it could make a real difference to tackling obesity.

'We believe that those people who don't receive serotonin signals from eating efficiently turn to food to improve their mood. But there are other ways to raise serotonin such as exercise so these people could be encouraged to become more active as a weight loss strategy. They would lose weight as they burned more calories, and also raise their serotonin levels, reducing their dependence on food as a way of improving mood.'

The researchers are hoping that the results of this 18 month programme will help in the battle with obesity.

The BMRC welcomes new members of staff

The BMRC would like to welcome three new members of staff to the department. Dr Verena Kriechbaumer and Dr Joy Mukherjee have joined Dr Ben Abell's plant biochemistry and molecular biology group, and Dr Alkistis Frentzou has also recently joined the department working with Dr Alison Cross on the role of ADAMTS-13 in transient ischaemic attack.

Dr Simona Francese joins the BMRC

Dr Simona Francese, a visiting scientist, has joined the BMRC from the Interdepartmental Centre of Mass Spectrometry, University of Florence, Italy. Dr Francese is funded by the British Royal Society to gain experience in Imaging Mass Spectrometry of small molecules working with Professor Malcolm Clench to work on a project entitled 'Spectroscopic Imaging techniques for the Study of Transdermal Absorption'.

Dr Francese is involved in running mass spectrometry services for 13 associated departments in the University of Florence, as well as being dedicated to a number of research projects mainly dealing with protein and peptide chemistry.

Different mass spectrometry techniques are applied to proteomics studies (Prosineki et al., J. Prot. Res.2006, 5, 2720-2726), protein-metallodrug complexes (Casini et al., ChemComm 2007, 156-158) protein and peptide characterization from insects (Turillazzi S. et al., 2007 J. Mass Spectrom. 2007, 199-205 ).

Recently, Simona and her group started to use imaging mass spectrometry applied to macromolecules to investigate different fields in biological sciences, in particular insect communication.

New grant award for stroke research

Drs Cross and Haddock in the BMRC and consultant neurologists, Kirsty Harkness and Graham Venables, at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, have been awarded £65,000 for a combined clinical and laboratory investigation into the role of ADAMTS-13 in Stroke and Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA). This is an 18 month project funded by the Ryder Briggs Charitable Trust.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and major disability worldwide and is caused in most cases by blockage of an artery by a blood clot. Blood clotting involves many regulatory pathways required to maintain a balance which if altered, may lead to unwanted clotting.

The enzymatic activity of ADAMTS-13 ensures a balance between multimeric and dimeric forms of Von Willebrand Factor (VWF) maintaining appropriate levels of platelet adhesion and aggregation. Deficiency of ADAMTS-13 can lead to unwanted clotting. The aim of this 18 month study is to determine the role of ADAMTS-13 in stroke/TIA patients Better understanding of the regulation of VWF by ADAMTS-13 will have implications for future management of cerebrovascular disease.

Best Scientific Paper

Dr Donna Sellers has been awarded the Best Scientific Paper published on Fundamental Research award for her paper on 'Depressed contractile responses to NKA in idiopathic but not neurogenic overactive detrusor muscle' by the European Association of Urology. The award was presented during the EAU Annual Meeting in Berlin on Thursday 22 March.

Research grant award from the BBSRC

Ben Abell has been awarded a BBSRC grant to investigate the localisation of membrane proteins in plant cells. Research is funded for three years and includes funding for a postdoctoral researcher and a research assistant. The total grant awarded is £441,382.

Protein targeting is an essential component of cellular organisation, directing the specific localisation of biochemical processes and the maintenance of cell structures. The efficiency and specificity of targeting processes is critical, with defects resulting in disease states or impaired growth. For example, localisation of the prion protein is a key factor in the lethal brain diseases BSE and CJD.

Collaborations within the BMRC, and with research groups at the University of Manchester and McGill University in Montreal (Canada), will play an important role in this research project.

Poster prize

A prize of £500 for the best poster in the national Excellence in Food Manufacture conference, held in London on 1 November, was presented to Vyshnavi Mummidi, an MSc Pharmacology and Biotechnology student. The poster entitled 'Omega-3 fatty acids and fruit smoothies- a natural combination?' summarised research into the feasibility of adding essential Omega-3 fatty acids in the form of walnuts and linseeds to fruit drinks. In particular, the research aimed to find out whether the fatty acids are stable and remain intact under different processing procedure without the addition of chemical antioxidants. The investigations which were undertaken as MSc research projects were performed by Vyshnavi Mummidi and Devashish Mishra and funded by a Faraday Food Processing Knowledge Transfer Network FastTrack Award granted to Dr Dawn Hadden.

Mass Spectrometry Awards

Malcolm Clench has been awarded the British Mass Spectrometry Society Lectureship for the academic year 2006/7. This lectureship aims to promote and desseminate information about modern mass spectrometry and its role in analytical science. The Society will sponsor Malcolm to give four lectures to different Universites around the UK and support him to attend international conferences.

Two of Malcolm's PhD students have also been awarded prizes. Brendan Prideaux has been awarded a prize by 'The Journal of Mass Spectrometry' to attend and present his work on measuring the absorption of hazardous materials into skin by mass spectrometry at the International Mass Spectrometry Conference to be held in Prague later this year. This was awarded based on his submitted abstract. Brendan has been invited to present his work as an oral presentation at the conference (attended by 2,500 delgates) and to submit his work as a full paper to the Journal subsequently.

Sally Atkinson was awarded the prize for best presentation by a post-graduate student at the Royal Society of Chemsitry Analytical Science Forum held in Cork in July of this year. Sally made a presentation entitled ' Examining the distribution of the bioreductive drug AQ4N and its metabolites in treated H460 human tumour xenographs and profiling of potential lipid biomarkers in colorectal liver metastasis by imaging MALDI-MS' (this makes it three out of the last four years that students from the BMRC have won this award).

MRC Discipline Hopping Award

The Biomedical Research Centre (BMRC) and Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) at Sheffield Hallam University have recently been awarded an MRC Discipline Hopping Award for an interdisciplinary project entitled 'Detection of volatile organic compounds using novel biocatalyst/sol gel based biosensors'. The project investigators are Professor Bob Akid (MERI), Dr Tom Smith (BMRC) and Dr Heming Wang (MERI).

Events

Mass Spectrometry Showcase Event

29 July 2009
11.00am to 3.00pm

Develop products with advanced properties by understanding the biological make up, behaviour and effects of your products and samples. Visit our mass spectrometry showcase event to see how you could capitalise on our expertise and advanced facilities in this area.

During the event you'll hear from our experts on topics including

MALDI-MS imaging - Professor Malcolm Clench
Analytical Services in the Biomedical Research Centre (including GC-MS, LC-MS, ATD-MS and TLC-MS) - Dr Jillian Newton
Using mass spectrometry to type bacterial species - Dr John Bright

Join us to learn about the different types of analysis available, how your business could use mass spectrometry analysis to generate areas of competitive advantage, tour our laboratory facilities and meet our team to discuss your individual requirements.

This free event will run from 11.00am to 3.00pm, with lunch provided. To register please contact Sarah Wright on 0114 225 3294 / s.l.wright@shu.ac.uk.

Faculty of Health and Wellbeing Research Day

17 December 2008

The Faculty of Health and Wellbeing held its first annual research day at the Millennium Galleries in December.

This event showcased the research currently taking place, with presentations from staff and students in the key areas of biomedical research, sport and exercise science, and health and social care research. A poster session and wine reception in the afternoon highlighted the ongoing research in our centres and across the faculty.

PerkinElmer Analytical Science Workshops

2 September 2008

As a global supplier of analytical instruments to industry and academia, PerkinElmer offered expert advice and guidance on sample analysis and current technology techniques and trends. Workshops were held throughout the day, on topics including

infra-red and near infra-red
infra-red imaging
raman spectroscopy
thermal analysis and elemental analysis
liquid chromatography developments
liquid chromatography workshop
gas chromatography and GC/MS and dedicated gas analyzers
GC sampling with HeadSpace and thermal desorption
UV/Vis
inorganic overview: AA, ICP-OES and ICP-MS
inorganic analysis: ICP-MS

Professorial Lecture by Professor Malcolm Clench - 'Every picture tells a story'

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Professor Malcolm Clench is a senior lecturer in analytical science and reader in mass spectrometry at the Biomedical Research Centre. His lecture focused on a major recent advance in the use of mass spectrometry - he gave a brief history of this advanced analytical technique and the way that bioscientists use it to examine the molecular distribution within biological tissue.

Professor Clench also looked at the background to the new development and supported his presentation with examples from post-genomic science such as protein and drug imaging in tumours.

Professor Clench is the leader of the MALDI and imaging special interest group of the British Mass Spectrometry Society. He is the author/co-author of over 60 papers on mass spectrometry. The most recent publications describe using the technique in the study of cancer.

BMRC Christmas Poster Session

Wednesday 19 December 2007

This poster presentation afternoon is an annual event where BMRC researchers who have attended conferences throughout the year have an opportunity to display their posters and discuss their work with colleagues.

The event, sponsored by Perkin Elmer, brought together colleagues from across the University to encourage cross-disciplinary working, and there was a prize for the best poster. For more information please contact Nicola Woodroofe.

Symposium Hospital Pharmacists Conference - Bulgaria, 10 November 2007

David Gerrett was an invited speaker and delivered presentations on 'Hospital Pharmacy UK vs Europe' and 'Pharmacy Prescribers in the UK'.

Biotechnology Summit - Malta, 3 - 5 October 2007

David Gerrett was an invited speaker and delivered a presentation on 'Clinical Trials, Clinical Governance and Pharmacoeconomics'.

Ben Abell poster presentations

Ben Abell presented at three conferences in summer/autumn 2007

North of England Cell Biology Forum - Liverpool, UK, September 2007
63rd Harden Conference 'Protein folding in vitro and in vivo' - Ambleside, UK, August 2007
Gordon Research Conference 'Protein transport across cell membranes' - Italy, June 2007

European Association of Urology - Berlin, March 2007

Donna Sellers made poster presentations on

spontaneous activity in the diabetic rat bladder detrusor muscle
is the urothelium involved in mediating bladder responses to β-adrenoceptor agonists? Comparison of dome and trigone
spontaneous bladder contraction: what is responsible for the difference in the inhibitory effect of cromakalim in bladder strips with and without urothelium/suburothelium?
which receptor subtype mediates the effects of β-adrenoceptor agonists on the urothelium of pig bladder dome?

British Pharmacological Society - Oxford, December 2006