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Memorial prize presented to SfAM member Brian Jones
Nottingham Scientist wins Cancer Research Award
Dr Marios Georgiou, lecturer in cell biology in Nottingham University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, has been awarded a five year Career Establishment Award of £600,000 from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) in support of career development and exciting discoveries that will help win the fight against cancer. The Charity has awarded £12 million to ten exceptional scientists and Dr Georgiou will use the award to identify the genes that are important for a benign tumour to transform into a malignant one. This is crucial to understanding how tumours spread to other parts of the body.
Dr Georgiou said: “I am thrilled and honoured that such a prestigious organisation as CRUK believes my research to be important and relevant. The substantial award will allow me to embark upon an ambitious project to identify genes involved in tumour progression. The five years funding, with generous support for research staff and running costs, is ideal for me as a newly appointed lecturer at The University of Nottingham as it will allow me to establish the laboratory and to focus my research
Dr Brian Jones (left) received the Oxoid W H Pierce Memorial Prize from Mr Richard Marsh, director of sales (microbiology), Northern Europe and ROW, Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, has announced that the 2011 Oxoid W H Pierce Memorial Prize, which commemorates the late W H (Bill) Pierce, has been awarded to Dr Brian Jones, Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, England. The award acknowledges Dr Jones’ research into the human gut mobile metagenome, the mobile genetic elements (such as plasmids) that are associated with gut microbiota.
Awarded under the auspices of the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM), the Oxoid W H Pierce Memorial Prize is presented every year to a young Society member who has made a substantial contribution to microbiology. Dr Jones is developing methods to study the transfer of genetic material within the whole gastric microbial community. This work will shed valuable light on our understanding of what is happening in the human gut microbiota and how it is involved in various diseases.
Dr Brian Jones graduated from the University of Cardiff in 2000 with a 1st Class Honours degree in Genetics and went on to complete his PhD on bacterial pathogenesis at the same university. He then spent four years in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at the University College of Cork in Ireland where he began the application of metagenomic approaches to understand the functioning of the human gut microbiota. It was at this time that he became interested in mobile genetic elements associated with this community and began to develop strategies to investigate the human gut mobile metagenome.
In 2008, Dr Jones accepted a lectureship in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Brighton, where he has established his own research group. His research continues to investigate the human gut mobile metagenome as well as the gut microbiota in general, with a major project currently underway aimed at understanding the role of gut bacteria in colon cancer. “I’m delighted to be awarded this prize, but I can’t take all the credit,” said Dr Jones. “I’ve been lucky enough to work with many excellent and supportive people over the last 10 years, most recently colleagues at the University of Brighton and my research group.”
For further information about the Oxoid W H Pierce Memorial Prize, please visit the SfAM website at
www.sfam.org.uk.
TO FIND OUT MORE CIRCLE NO. Photonex 2011
Ricoh Arena, Coventry, October 18-19th: The 20th conference and exhibition will have presentations from international speakers and parallel sessions on a wide area of subjects, with opportunities for networking. Held alongside Vacuum Expo. For full details visit
www.photonex.org
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in the hope of producing work of high quality and of high significance to human health.
“Our research uses the fruit fly (a small fly, which you may often find flying above your fruit bowl) to study cancer because it has many advantages over other cancer models. For instance we can carry out complex experiments relatively quickly and cheaply and by using the fly, we avoid using vertebrate animals for this research.” Dr Georgiou and his team have developed a system that combines the powerful genetic tools of the fruit fly with state-of-the-art live cell imaging. Using this system, cancer cells can be followed in unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution as the tumour progresses in the living animal. This will allow them to characterise the precise molecular and cell biological events that lead to the development of a malignant tumour. Dr David Scott, Cancer Research UK’s director of science funding, said: “Having 10 awards available sends out the important message that Cancer Research UK is serious about supporting new scientists at the start of their careers.”
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Stem Cell Breakthrough has Therapies Potential
Scientists from the universities of Southampton and Glasgow have uncovered a new method for culturing adult stem cells which could lead to the creation of revolutionary stem cell therapies for conditions such as arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the University of Glasgow* shows how a new nanoscale plastic can cheaply and easily solve a problem which has previously made the expansion of stem cells for therapeutic purposes impossible. Harvested cells need to be increased in volume sufficiently enough to kick-start the process of cellular regeneration when they are reintroduced back into the patient but the process is made more difficult by spontaneous stem cell differentiation, where stem cells grown on standard plastic tissue culture surfaces do not expand to create new stem cells but instead create other cells which are of no use in therapy. The new nanopatterned surface, developed and fabricated at the University of Glasgow, is designed to offer a method of stem cell expansion which is much easier to manufacture and use than anything currently available. Created by an injection-moulding
process similar to that which is used to manufacture Blu-ray discs, the surface is covered with 120-nanometre pits which the researchers have found is much more effective in allowing stem cells to grow and spread whilst retaining their stem cell characteristics. Dr Matthew Dalby from the University of Glasgow, who led the research alongside colleagues Dr Nikolaj Gadegaard and Professor Richard Oreffo of the University of Southampton, explained: “Until now, it’s been very difficult to grow stem cells in sufficient numbers and maintain them as stem cells for use in therapy. What we and our colleagues at the University of Southampton have shown is that this new nanostructured surface can be used to very effectively culture mesencyhmal stem cells, taken from sources such as bone marrow, which can then be put to use in musculoskeletal, orthopaedic and connective tissues. “If the same process can be used to culture other types of stem cells too, and this research in under way in our labs, our technology could be the first step on the road to developing large-scale stem cell culture factories.” *The paper, titled ‘Nanoscale surfaces for the long-term maintenance of mesenchymalstem cell phenotype and multipotency’, is published in the journal Nature Materials.
TO FIND OUT MORE CIRCLE NO. Lister Research Prize for Dundee scientist Dr Victoria Cowling
Dr Victoria Cowling, of the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, has been awarded one of three highly coveted Lister Research Prizes for 2011. Awarded by the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, the prizes give young scientists the opportunity to develop their potential as scientists by awarding them £200,000 in flexible funding over a five-year period. Professor Mike Ferguson, Dean of Research at the College of Life Sciences, said: “This award is certainly well- deserved; the competition for the Lister Research Prizes is fierce and Vicky is to be congratulated on winning one for her highly innovative approach to fundamental cell biology and biochemistry that is highly relevant to cancer. It is also a
recognition of the College’s commitment to supporting excellent early career researchers.” Dr Cowling graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, with a BA in Natural Sciences and went on to do her doctoral research with Julian Downward and Gerard Evan at Cancer Research UK laboratories in London. She was a postdoctoral researcher with Michael Cole at the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, USA and at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Dartmouth College, USA. She moved to the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee in 2007. Her research is focused on how genes that cause cancer affect the first stage of protein production by the body, which may pave the way for the development of novel drugs that destroy cancer cells by blocking this step. Upon receiving news of the prize Dr Cowling said: "I am very grateful to receive this Lister Fellowship. The funding will allow us to carry out some vital experiments. It’s really an award for the whole lab since it was the lab members' hard work which resulted in us receiving it." The Lister Institute's approach to scientific support continues to be unique in that it funds tenured and non-tenured researchers, clinicians and non-clinicians and has no priority diseases or restrictions on the research area supported. The Institute also grants its Research Prize holders the freedom to develop their research careers individually while fostering a sense of identity and community.
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