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Soil bacteria hormone discovery provides fertile ground for new antibiotics

The discovery of how hormone-like molecules turn on antibiotic production in soil bacteria could unlock the untapped opportunities for medicines that are under our very feet.

An international team of scientists working in the Department of Chemistry, the School of Life Sciences and the Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre at the University of Warwick, UK, and Monash University, Australia, have determined the molecular basis of a biological mechanism that could enable more efficient and cost-effective production of existing antibiotics, and also allow scientists to uncover new antibiotics in soil bacteria.

It is detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature.

Thu 11 Feb 2021, 08:23 | Tags: publications ChemBio Research news



Warwick students and staff co-author RSC teaching book on Stereochemistry

Written, reviewed and tested by students, for students! As part of the RSC's latest series of tutorial textbooks, a team of students and staff have co-authored textbooks on Stereochemistry and Contextual Maths in Chemistry.

Warwick students Caroline Akamune and Matthew Taylor and academics Andrew Clark and Russ Kitson teamed up with Leeds student Michael Lloyd and academics Nimesh Mistry and Paul Taylor to create a new stereochemistry textbook. What makes this book different is that it is co-authored with students to be in the 'student voice' making it more accessible to the undergraduate reader. It is also written so it can be used in conjunction with a molecular modelling kit, in-line with research that shows rotating and manipulating objects (e.g. molecular models) with your hands helps with grasping spatial cognition concepts in your head!

The RSC Chemistry Student Guides series editing team includes Warwick's own Julie Macpherson.

Fri 23 Oct 2020, 16:54 | Tags: news people publications Education

Strongest carbon-carbon single bond yields to macrocyclic Rh complex

Oxidative Addition of a Mechanically Entrapped C(sp)-C(sp) Bond to a Rhodium(I) Pincer Complex

By use of a macrocyclic phosphinite pincer ligand and bulky substrate substituents, researchers in the Chaplin group have demonstrated how the mechanical bond can be leveraged to promote the oxidative addition of an interlocked 1,3‐diyne to a rhodium(I) center. The resulting rhodium(III) bis(alkynyl) product can be trapped out by reaction with carbon monoxide or intercepted through irreversible reaction with dihydrogen, resulting in selective hydrogenolysis of the C−C σ‐bond.

HOT article in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.

Thu 22 Oct 2020, 21:45 | Tags: news publications SynthCat Research news



Freezing cells made safer thanks to new polymer

Freezing cells made safer thanks to new polymer made at University of Warwick

 

- A new polymer that’s a cryoprotectant dramatically improves the freezing of cells has been discovered by researchers at the University of Warwick

- The new polymers can reduce the amount of organic solvent required in cryopreservation (freezing cells) as well as giving more and healthier cells after thawing

- Findings may help reduce cost and improve distribution of cells for cell-based therapies, diagnostics and research

 

Cell freezing (cryopreservation) – which is essential in cell transfusions as well as basic biomedical research – can be dramatically improved using a new polymeric cryoprotectant, discovered at the University of Warwick, which reduces the amount of ‘anti-freeze’ needed to protect cells.

 

The ability to freeze and store cells for cell-based therapies and research has taken a step forward in the paper ‘A synthetically scalable poly(ampholyte) which dramatically Enhances Cellular Cryopreservation.’ published by the University of Warwick’s Department of Chemistry and Medical School in the journal Biomacromolecules. The new polymer material protects the cells during freezing, leading to more cells being recovered and less solvent-based antifreeze being required.

 

Cryopreservation of cells is an essential process, enabling banking and distribution of cells, which would otherwise degrade. The current methods rely on adding traditional ‘antifreezes’ to the cells to protect them from the cold stress, but not all the cells are recovered and it is desirable to lower the amount of solvent added.

 

The new Warwick material was shown to allow cryopreservation using less solvent. In particular, the material was very potent at protecting cell monolayers – cells which are attached to a surface, which is the format of how they are grown and used in most biomedical research.

 

Having more, and better quality cells, is crucial not just for their use in medicine, but to improve the quality and accessibility of cells for the discovery of new drugs for example.

 

Cell-based therapies are emerging as the “fourth pillar” of chemo-therapy. New methods to help distribute and bank these cells will help make them more accessible and speed up their roll-out, and this new material may aid this process.

 

Professor Matthew Gibson who holds a joint appointment between the Department of Chemistry and Warwick Medical School comments:

 

“Cryopreservation is fundamental to so much modern bioscience and medicine, but we urgently need better methods to meet the needs of advanced cell-based therapies. Our new material is easy to scale up, which is essential if this is to be widely used, and we found it to be very protective for several cell lines. The simplicity of our approach will hopefully help us translate this to real applications quickly, and make an impact in healthcare and basic research.”

 

ENDS

 

29 JULY 2019

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

 

High-res image available at:

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/july2019/mg_cells.jpg

 

Credit: University of Warwick. Caption: The cells frozen with the polymer (left) and without the polymer (right)

 

Paper available to view at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.biomac.9b00681

 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Alice Scott
Media Relations Manager – Science
University of Warwick
Tel: +44 (0) 2476 574 255 or +44 (0) 7920 531 221
E-mail: alice.j.scott@warwick.ac.uk

Tue 20 Aug 2019, 10:29 | Tags: news PolymerChem publications MatPolymers Research news


Alzheimer's discovery published in Science Advances

Peptide-mimetic metallohelices bind Alzheimer protein and extend life in an insect model

Sun 21 Jan 2018, 12:58 | Tags: news publications SynthCat ChemBio

More electronic materials opened up with new metal-organic framework

Research published today in Nature Communications shows how high photoconductivity and semiconductor behaviour can be added to MOFs - which already have a huge international focus for their applications in gas storage, sensing and catalysis.

The new work, conducted by Universities in Brazil, the United Kingdom and France – including researchers at Warwick’s Department of Chemistry - found that the new MOF has a photoresponsivity of 2.5 × 105 A.W-1

The work has been highlighted in a press release.

Fri 15 Dec 2017, 11:48 | Tags: publications MatPolymers

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