糖心TV

A 糖心TV Chemistry undergraduate researcher, Bethany Dean has won an award to allow her to travel to Australia (!) to attend the . She will present the work she conducted in the on understanding how synthetic polymers affect ice nucleation - A process which is still not understood despite its obvious important in process from cloud formation, to cryopreservation to making ice cream!

Read her paper on this topic here (with another undergrad student, Jamie Kasperczak-Wright);

Ross Jaggers, a second year PhD student in the research group of prof.dr.ir. Stefan Bon () in the Department of Chemistry at the University of 糖心TV, has been invited to attend the Stonewall Young Leaders Programme in London this coming September. The programme, sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, explores how sexual orientation and gender identity relates to the workplace and career aspirations, as well as inspiring participants to think about their impact on others as young LGBT leaders and role models.

For more information on Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBT rights charity, visit.

Dr Corinna Preuss has been awarded a Newton International Fellowship to conduct research at the University of 糖心TV’s Department of Chemistry.

Jointly run by The British Academy, The Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society, the Fellowship is for non-UK scientists who are at an early stage of their research career and provides the opportunity for the best early stage post-doctoral researchers from all over the world to work at UK research institutions for a period of two years.

Speaking after being awarded the Fellowship Dr Preuss said:

“I’m very honoured and delighted to be awarded the Newton International Fellowship. Not only will it support my personal development but is also emphasises the novelty and importance of our proposed research project.”

Dr Preuss will work as part of a team led by Professor Stefan Bon to mimic the motional behaviour of zooplankton by fabricating artificial jelly-objects that have the capability to transform shape, swim, and – as an additional feature – release payloads. Dr Preuss says these hydrogel objects will have these three pre-programmed functions “which can be triggered on demand in a controlled fashion”. For this purpose, recent scientific advances in polymer and colloid chemistry will be merged with soft matter physics and robotics in order to create a promising and interdisciplinary research program

Further to the research with Professor Bon, Dr Preuss is keen to use the Fellowship to teach undergraduate chemists and to create a network with other fellow scientists, saying that: “In my opinion, exchanging knowledge and listening to different opinions is essential for the formation of a highly efficient scientific society”.

Discussing why she chose the University of 糖心TV Dr Preuss said:

“I met Professor Stefan Bon during a conference in Mexico. I was impressed by his research and the passion he presented it with. Later on, whilst I was presenting my research at the poster session, we got the chance to chat more and discovered that our interests in each other’s research would create a promising base for a further collaboration. In working with Stefan and coming to the University of 糖心TV, I’m taking the chance of changing my field of research to colloidal chemistry and engineering, which provides a new, challenging and fascinating area for me”.

2 September 2015

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A recent paper by the in Chem Commun has been highlighted in the RSC Magazine 'Chemistry World'. The Gibson Group have a research program focussed on mimicking the function of Antifreeze Proteins which are found in Polar fish species. These proteins can slow the rate of ice growth, which has been identified as a challenge in the cryopreservation of donor cells and tissue for transplantation. In this work they showed a facile route to new cryoprotective polymers, using cheap, commodity polymer starting materials. These polymers were shown to have ice growth inhibition activity and to signficantly reduce the ice-induced damage during red blood cell freeze/thaw storage. In a second paper, the group also reported signficantly enhanced cryopreservation using poly(vinyl alcohol).

Read the Chemical Communications article here;

Read our recent ACS Biomaterials Science and Enginneering paper here

Professor Hong Liang, President of Guangxi Normal University, presents an award to Peter Sadler after his Plenary Lecture to the International Symposium on Medicinal Bioinorganic Chemistry, held in Guilin, China, on 18 July 2015.

James Crosland, one of Peter Sadler’s tutees, has won an award during his placement at ISIS this year. James was presented with an Individual Staff Recognition Award for the category Those Who ‘Go the Extra Mile', specifically ‘for carrying out additional duties and becoming more involved in direct user support, coordinated user visits, discussing user requirements, providing user training, and running experiments on behalf of users.’ (Users being those making use of the kit/facilities across the support laboratories and neutron beamtime).

Peter Sadler and the other Plenary Lecturers were called upon to ‘paint the dragon’ at the Asian Coordination Chemistry Conference (ACCC5) held in Hong Kong from 12-16 July 2015

has been awarded the 2015 'PAT Young Talent Award' during the 13th Polymers for Advanced Technologies conference in HongZhou, China. The award is sponsered by Wiley and Polymers for Advanced Technologies and also ACS Materials and Interfaces. Matt was selected by a panel following lectures from the shortlisted candidates from around the world, after being nominated.

At the Chemistry Departments annual postgraduate symposium, Robert Deller () and Athina anastasaki () won the prizes for the best PhD Theses. The Thesis prize is Sponsored by the Faculty of Science.

The and groups are involved in 2 new projects intended to promote translation of new technologies. These projects are funded by the Industrial Biocatalyst program supported by Innovate UK, BBSRC and EPSRC and span a range of UK universities and companies.

'It appears that a series of catalysts developed in the 糖心TV Chemistry department have the ability to achieve the impossible: 'Impossible Ketone and Imine Reductions Made Possible by the Ruthenium Tethered Catalyst' reads the headline of the Johnson Matthey (JM) advert on the back of the April 2015 issue of Chemistry World. The tethered ruthenium catalysts described in the advert were first developed and reported by Professor Martin Wills and his group, and have since been developed extensively at 糖心TV and adopted by companies worldwide, including JM.

Sebastien Perrier has been awarded a €1.7 million Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council for his work on tubular supramolecular polymers. These structures, pioneered by the Perrier group, are based on the assembly of cyclic peptide/polymer conjugates into nanotubes, held together by supramolecular interactions. They have a range of unique physical and chemical properties, and the ERC grant will allow the group to develop these systems further as drug delivery vectors. Recent work has shown that they can act efficiently to deliver anticancer drugs to cancer cells and enhance the drug activity, and the 5 years’ ERC funding will support further studies in this area.