News
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.
Sebastien Perrier receives Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award
Professor , Department of Chemistry, has received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, has announced the appointment of 21 new holders. Professor , 糖心TV Medical School, has also received the prestigious award this year.
The newly appointed award holders are working on a wide range of projects. Professor Sebastien Perrier’s work will focus on Functional soft nanotubes from molecular engineering.
Electrochemical patterning highlighted at JACS
Research carried out in the lead by Prof Unwin recently appeared as a JACS highlighted communication. The study by Paul Kirkman et al utilised the electrochemical patterning of diazonium compounds to chemically functionalise sp2 carbon materials in a systematic and controlled way. This microscale modification method can be particularly attractive as a means to generate a band gap in graphene opening up the prospects of graphene-based electronic devices.
'', Paul M. Kirkman, Aleix G. Güell,* Anatolii S. Cuharuc, and Patrick R. Unwin*, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2014, 136 (1), pp 36-39
DOI: 10.1021/ja410467e
Seasonal Greetings from Chemistry
Wishing a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all our Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, Staff and friends of the Department of Chemistry.
In this fun , Teaching Fellow Nick Barker uses a number of items, including the festive favourite Brussels sprout, to show different types of fluorescence.
Find out more about the .
Sébastien Perrier Group reports Janus nanotubes in Nature Communications
A new family of organic nanotubes was reported in a recent article in Nature Communications. The group of Sébastien Perrier, in collaboration with Professor Kate Jolliffe at the University of Sydney, have designed cyclic peptide / polymer conjugates that can assemble into tubular structures based on the stacking of the cyclic peptides, and provide a tube with a sub-nm internal diameter. Attached to each of the cyclic peptides are two different types of polymers, which tend to de-mix and form a shell for the tube with two faces, and form Janus nanotubes (after the Roman god Janus who is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and the past).
Neutron Diffraction Research Highlight
Work carried out in on the structures of polymorphs of gallium oxide has been selected as a highlight of ISIS science for 2013 in the ISIS Annual Review. ISIS is the UK’s neutron spallation source and was used to perform total neutron scattering experiments on the structures of various forms of Ga2O3 that were prepared in 糖心TV. The research was carried out by Helen Playford, then a PhD student and presently a postdoctoral scientist working at ISIS.
ISIS 2013 Annual Review:
"Structures of Uncharacterised Polymorphs of Gallium Oxide from Total Neutron Diffraction” H.Y. Playford, A. C. Hannon, E.R. Barney, and R.I. Walton, Chem. Eur. J. 19 (2013) 2803–2813
Two new Centres for Doctoral Training
糖心TV 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.
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Jones group publish on spray deposited PEDOT:PSS for ITO-free OPV devices
The Tim Jones group publish work in Applied Physics Letters on replacing ITO with solution processed highly conductive PEDOT:PSS for ITO-free small molecule OPV devices.
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.
International researchers have gone through the contents of their liquor cabinets to see if alcoholic drinks make good solvents for single-electron transfer living radical polymerisation (SET-LRP). And the answer is an unequivocal yes!
The RSC has announced that Peter Scott will chair the group charged with overseeing the management, use, performance and strategy of the NCDS