News and events
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News
Media Round-up
Professor Malcolm Clench recently appeared on the BBC4 science documentary, "Afterlife, the Science of Decay". Clips from the programme can be found here. Utilising experiments carried out in the BMRC, Malcolm demonstrated the take up of labelled nitrogen compounds into plants using mass spectrometry imaging.
Interest continues in our work on MALDI imaging of fingermarks, led by Dr Simona Francese. Following on from a BBC news report, the story was picked up by a number of media outlets. A presentation by Simona on this work can be found here, and she also recently appeared on the BBC World Services "Science in Action" programme, which can be listened to here.
BMRC International Travel
Dr Susan Laird carried out a Biosciences profile raising and information finding trip to South-West China from 8th to 20th October. She was accompanied by Jayne Wilson the China Specialist from the HWB Faculty International Team and Rico Gao from the Sheffield Hallam University China Office. The visit was based in Chengdu, which is Sheffield's sister city in China. Visits were made to South West University of Technology in Mianyang, Chongqing Medical and Pharmaceutical College in Chongqing and Gunagdong Food and Vocational College in Guangzhou. Subsequently proposals for links into both our postgraduate and undergraduate programmes have been developed.
Dr Ben Abell visited Chennai, India in October. the visit centred on a biotechnology conference organised by the British Council and Anna University, and included representatives from several British universities. Visits were made to various sites of Anna University, including Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering and the Centre for Biotechnology.
Professor Malcolm Clench was invited to speak at the 53rd Meeting of the Society for Histochemistry held in Munich on 12-15 October 2011. The theme of the meeting was “The Current Role of Histochemistry in Preclinical and Clinical Research”. Professor Clench’s lecture “MALDI-MS imaging and profiling of pancreatic and stomach cancer tissue microarrays” addressed issues of sample throughput and data interpretation.
Professor Clench was also invited to speak by Novartis in Basel, Switzerland as part of the company’s seminar series. On 15th November he spoke on the “Examination of Pharmaco/Toxicodynamic Responses in Xenografts and Human Skin by MALDI-MS Imaging” at the Novartis Campus in Basel.
Professor Clench completed a busy period of overseas travel by attending the initial meeting of the management group of EU-COST Action BM1104 “Mass Spectrometry Imaging: New Tools for Healthcare Research” held in Brussels 23rd-24th November.
In June 2011 Dr Simona Francese attended the 59th annual ASMS Conference in Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics in Denver (Colorado) together with the Mass Spectrometry group led by Prof. M.R. Clench. Simona presented a poster entitled" Development of a MALDI MSI based methodology for the identification of sexual assault suspects" which was a research development of previous work she published in January 2011 in "Rapid Communication in Mass Spectrometry".
Eva Illes-Toth (Year 1 PhD student) and Dr David Smith also went to Denver, Colorado, USA along with all of the of the mass spectrometry group from BMRC for the American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) annual conference. A number of posters were presented by members of the BMRC, the main one being "linking the structure and function of amyloid oligomers involved in Parkinson's disease by ion-mobility-spectrometry mass-spectrometry" show-casing the work produced on the recently purchased Synapt G2 mass spectrometer at SHU.
Marina Schulter (Year 1 P/T PhD student with Drs N McKay and K Lawson) attended the Marie Curie Researcher's Symposium in Warsaw, Poland in September 2011. The drive for this Symposium with the theme 'Science - Passion, Mission and Responsibility' was to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Marie Curie Actions in Warsaw, the birthplace of Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
Cancer Research group - Three PhD Students (Amani Mahbub (Year 2 PhD student supervised by Dr Nikki Jordan-Mahy) and two, third year PhD students Haytham Dahlwi and Rana Zaini (both supervised by Dr Christine Le Maitre) presented posters at the World Polyphenol conference in Barcelona in October 2011.
In November 2011 Rachel Doherty (year 3 PhD student supervised by Dr Neil Cross) spent 4 weeks working at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, USA. Rachel was working in Dr Tom Sayers' lab investigating the expression of the stem cell marker gene 'Nanog' in both prostate and breast cancer cell lines.
Professor Tom Smith, together with Professor Bob Akid and Dr Heming Wang from MERI, visited King Fahd’s University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in October in connection with a new collaborative project funded by KFUPM to develop new biologically functionalised coatings for protection against corrosion and biofouling in the petroleum industry. Tom also attended Biotrans 2011, the international conference on microbial biocatalysis, in Sicily during October in connection with his group’s work on development of microbial enzymes to manufacture valuable products.
Professor Nicola Woodroofe attended the 5th Joint Triennial Congress of the European and Americas Committees for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS and ACTRIMS) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from 19 – 22 October 2011. There were a total of 7,169 participants from 94 different destinations worldwide, it was the largest ever ECTRIMS conference. This was an excellent opportunity to networking with both academics and pharmaceutical companies developing treatments for multiple sclerosis.
Kate Phillips a 3rd year PhD student together with Dr Christine Le Maitre attended the Philadelphia Spine Conference in November 2011. Kate presented her PhD work as an oral and a poster presentation, and Christine gave an oral presentation on the work of a first year PhD student Becky Barthrop who was unable to attend. Together with a poster presentation on some additional work from her research group. In addition Dr Le Maitre co-chaired one of the sessions and was included as a junior faculty member.
PhD Update
Mariam El Sheikhi passed her PhD subject to minor amendments on March 13th. The title of her thesis is 'Chemokines and Human Endometrial Cell Function' and her Director of Studies was Susan Laird. Congratulations to Mariam.
Two PhD degrees were awarded in November/December both to students under the supervision of Prof Tom Smith. Jeanette Gittens’ thesis is entitled, “The Novel Use of Micro-organisms in Materials Science” and was a joint EPSRC funded PhD degree with MERI co supervised by Prof Bob Akid and Tim Nichol’s thesis is entitled “Mutagenic studies into the catalytic versatility of soluble methane monooxygenase” which was funded in part by BMRC and the BBSRC and was a collaboration with Prof Colin Murrell at Warwick University.
Congratulations to all involved in this exciting research. Jeanette’s and Tim’s work has also resulted in publications for the REF and a patent application.
PhD student Laura Cole was awarded the prize for the best PhD student talk at the 10th East Midlands Proteomics Workshop held at Loughborough University. Laura’s talk entitled 'Proteomics of Combretastatin Treated Fibrosarcomas Using Ion-Mobility MALDI Mass Spectrometry Imaging' was extremely well received by the audience of 180 scientists from around the country.
Richard Battle, PhD student and Clinical Scientist in NHS, has been appointed as a committee member of The British Society for Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics (BSHI) a significant membership including Biomedical Scientists, Clinical Scientists, Physicians, Surgeons, Researchers and Academics. Formed In 1989, BSHI main objectives being to promote and protect health for the public benefit, in particular by ensuring the highest professional standards and by the advancement of scientific research and its application within the field of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. The BSHI committee is comprised of 6 ordinary members, a Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary.
Staff News
Simona Francese and Malcolm Clench have been awarded a BBSRC 4 year case studentship with GSK to continue to develop application of Mass Spectrometry Imaging. It is expected that a new student will start in September/October 2012.
Christine Le Maitre has been successful in gaining a PhD studentship based at Manchester Metropolitan University with Glen Cooper and Neil Reeves to work on Mechanical Analysis of Low Back Pain. The project is an MMU internally funded PhD studentship and Christine will be one of the PhD supervisory team. This collaboration was established following Engineering for Life event.
Matthew Conner's paper ' Rapid aquaporin translocation regulates cellular water flow: the mechanism of hypotonicity-induced sub-cellular localization of the aquaporin 1 water channel' (J Biol Chem 2012 Feb 9) has been selected by the Faculty of 1000 service (F1000)'. Matthew's paper is regarded as being in the top 2% of published articles in biology and medicine". The F1000 service is widely used to find significant new research articles, and the inclusion of our article should significantly increase its visibility.
Events
BMRC Careers Fair
On July 6th the BMRC will be holding a careers fair for PhD and professional Doctorate students. Former PhD students from BMRC will be giving talk about their current jobs. There will also be talks from academic staff and the SHU careers service.
BMRC Summer Conference
July 9th is the date for the first student led BMRC PhD Student Summer Research Conference. The conference is an opportunity to showcase research currently going on in the BMRC. The programme for the day will be structured into research groups including: microbiology, musculoskeletal, cancer, neuroscience/immunology and mass spectrometry/analytical science.
BMRC/MERI Winter Poster Event 2011
The Biomedical Research Centre (BMRC) recently joined forces with colleagues from the Materials Engineering Research Institute (MERI) to host a successful poster session.
Around100 staff and students attended the event, which showcased work the two research centres had produced over the past year. 14 different research groups displayed their work, with many of their posters having previously been presented by students and staff at national and international conferences during 2011. The session also served to highlight some of the cross-Faculty research the centres are currently engaged in, with highlights of the session including posters created through collaborations between BMRC and MERI. Among those admiring the work on display was Mike Smith, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer, and representatives from the multiple sclerosis and cancer research support groups who form part of BMRC's User Involvement Group.
The afternoon session concluded with an awards ceremony, with Professor Nicola Woodroofe, head of BMRC, and Professor Bob Akid, director of MERI, presenting prizes for the best posters in three categories: those based on research from BMRC, from MERI, and work from collaborative projects between the two centres. Scooping the top honours were Dr. Verena Kriechbaumer, Hajar Razaghi and Becky Barthrop.
Visitors
Dr Linda Nocci, an Italian post doc, working with Neil McKay, K Lawson and Marina Schulzte will be working some of the time on the BMRC over the coming months. She is working on the EU bladder project at University of Sheffield and SHU. Please say hello to her.
Martha Barboni from University of Pisa is joining us for 4 months from 1st March to work with Dr Kim Lawson to work on potassium channels. This is a longstanding collaboration between BMRC and this group at the University of Pisa.
Dr Linda Nocci, an Italian post doc, working with Neil McKay, K Lawson and Marina Schulzte will be working some of the time on the BMRC over the coming months. She is working on the EU bladder project at University of Sheffield and SHU. Please say hello to her.
Martha Barboni from University of Pisa is joining us for 4 months from 1st March to work with Dr Kim Lawson to work on potassium channels. This is a longstanding collaboration between BMRC and this group at the University of Pisa.
