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Silver drugs?
3 February 2012
Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Bradford have found that particular silver compounds are as toxic to cancer cells as the platinum-based drug Cisplatin, which is widely used to treat a range of cancers.
The crucial difference is that silver is thought to be much less toxic to healthy human cells, and in some cases, can be beneficial. Silver is currently used for its antiseptic and antibiotic properties, in bandages, wound dressings and water purification filters in the third world.
The findings, which have been led by Dr. Charlotte Willans in the School of Chemistry and have been published in Dalton Transactions, have received significant media coverage. Charlotte was interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, and New Scientist, the Yorkshire Post, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror have all covered the news.
Over the next 12 months, research will focus on investigating how the compounds damage cancerous cells and also their effects on healthy cells. This will establish whether these silver complexes are in fact less toxic to ordinary human tissue, in addition to aiding the design and development of next-generation compounds that are more effective than Cisplatin without the sever side-effects This work is been carried out in collaboration with Dr. Roger Phillips at the University of Bradford and is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research.
More details of the work can be found on the University website
Scientific cruise
2 February 2012
Researchers in Chemistry have recently returned from South East Asia having participated in an international field project called SHIVA (Stratospheric ozone: Halogen Impacts in a Varying Atmosphere) which aims to understand the influence of emissions of halogen molecules from the oceans on the chemistry of the atmosphere.
Dr. Trevor Ingham (NCAS Fellow) and Hannah Bunyan (3rd year PhD student), who are both members of Professor Dwayne Heard's group, lived and worked aboard the RV Sonne, a German research vessel, for two weeks during a scientific cruise from Singapore to Manila. Training in the event of a pirate attack was mandatory, but fortunately was not required!
Trevor and Hannah made measurements of short lived iodine species (for example the iodine oxide radical) using laser-based instrumentation that was housed in a container at the very front of the ship. SHIVA is an EU funded project, coordinated by the University of Heidelberg, and involved partners from the UK, Malaysia, Germany, France, Norway and Belgium. Funding also came from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, a NERC facility which is coordinated in Leeds. Professor Martyn Chipperfield and Ryan Hossaini, from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, are also involved in SHIVA and are performing a number of modeling studies.
This part of the world was chosen as emissions from the ocean surface can be rapidly uplifted (for example by convective storms) to very high altitudes and enter the stratosphere. Other partners made measurements of a range of molecules from a research aircraft in the same region. The data recorded from the cruise will help us to understand the chemical mechanisms which release iodinated species from the very upper layers of the ocean, or from aerosols generated by ocean waves, which are currently not well understood. Once in the atmosphere, these species can be broken down by sunlight, generating radicals which can react with ozone (an important greenhouse gas) in the immediate vicinity, and on a wider scale via vertical transport of longer-lived halogen species which can enter the stratosphere, and impact stratospheric ozone, which protects us from ultraviolet radiation. The project involved a lot of logistical planning, with the equipment still en route back from Manila. Further information about the SHIVA project can be found at: http://shiva.iup.uni-heidelberg.de/
Poster prize win.
24 January 2012
In December Kathryn Evans, a PhD student in Dr. Julie Fisher’s group, was awarded the Bruker BioSpin Student Poster Prize ($250) for the work she presented at the ANZMAG 2011 meeting held in Victoria, Australia.
Kathryn collected her prize from Dr. Peter Barron of Bruker Spectrospin (pictured). The winning poster described Kathryn’s UV thermal melting and NMR studies (including structure generation) on a DNA hairpin interacting with a single strand to form triple helical DNA. Kathryn’s work is aimed at establishing factors which stabilise triplex formation, the complex formed in the antigene therapeutic strategy.
SCI National Competition
23 January 2012
A team of postgraduates from the Nelson group have recently been invited to the finals of National Retrosynthesis competition run by the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).
The team, comprising of (L-R) Tom James, George Karageorgis, Mark Dow and Dr Paul MacLellan, fought off competition from both academic and industrial groups to earn a place in the finals where they will be challenged to provide a synthesis of Alsmaphorazine E, a recently discovered indole alkaloid.
They will be presenting their work at SCI house in London in February, competing against teams from institutions such as Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge, and numerous industrial teams, for this prestigious prize.
We wish them the best of luck.
Pain and Peptides!
20 January 2012
Danielle Miles, winner of the MaPS PhD student of the year 2011, gave a lecture to the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society last night.
Danielle was talking about the subject of her postgraduate research: peptide-based gels as a potential fix for worn spinal discs.
The capacity audience was comprised of biologists, biophysicists, engineers, chemists and clinicians, together with lay members of the public. The age range was impressive and the subject matter very relevant! Danielle gave an accessible account of her research and the lecture was very well received. More information about the work conducted in her supervisor, Dr. Aggeli’s group is available from http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/People/Aggeli.html.
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