RSOP Research News 20 Jan 2014

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The newsletter is published monthly during term time. This issue coversthe period December 2013-January 2014. Please let Cat Hale ([email protected] ) know if there are items you would like included inthe next issue.

We aim to report successful grant applications, published papers, andrelated research news.

elcome

RSOP Leading Readings First ScienceSlam

RSOPs Pharmacology academics, Dr Gary Stephens ([email protected] ) and Dr Alister McNeish ([email protected] ) are leading the first Science Slam eventwhich forms part of Readings programme for Reading Science Week.

Science Slams are highly successful events that have been held acrossEurope and one will now come to Reading! Described as a thrillingcompetition in which scientists present their mind-boggling work in acomprehensible and accessible way in just six minutes, at the end of theevening, the audience vote and decide: which scientist will thrive andwhich will struggle to survive? There will be prizes for the winners andrumour has it that Dr Stephens may be dusting off his comic one liners fora stint as compere on the night! A video of Science Slam in action can beseen here: http://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-video

The event is open to undergraduates, postgraduates and post-doctoralresearchers. Details about entry have already been circulated but aresummarized below in case you missed them! Any questions can always bedirected to Gary or Alister on the emails above.

Rules: must be fun, must be theatrical, creative and scientific, must notuse PowerPoint. Props, costumes, music and audience participation are in!Reading Rep, a local theatre company, will help develop performance andprovide rehearsal time and support. Expressions of interest [email protected] by Sunday 9 th February.The Science Slam will be at South Street Arts Centre, 7.30pm, Saturday22nd March.

Tickets :http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924

Inside This Issue

Welcome RSOP Leading Readings

First Science Slam RSOP Postgraduate

Research Showcase Success Hot off the Press Funding Successes

Neuroscience Question

Time The Khutoryanskiy Tour

Continues! Signing Event for Associate

Professor in Hormesis Forthcoming Seminars

School of PharmacyResearch Newsletter

1st February, 2014 #20
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-videohttp://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-videohttp://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-videomailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924http://www.readingarts.com/southstreet/whatson/event.asp?id=SXEBAA-A7823924mailto:[email protected]://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-videohttp://www.scienceslam.at/category/slams/?video=catarina-carrao#ss5-videomailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Reading School of Pharmacy Research News

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RSOP Postgraduate Research ShowcaseSuccess The RSOP Postgraduate Research Showcase was held on Friday 10 th January and, in his new role as Director of Postgraduate Progression, DrChe Connon writes:

The recent Pharmacy research showcase was a great success with over 80

participants, 15 external guests and 5 industrial sponsors. The day was verywell attended with a large number of excellent poster and platformpresentations from all o f RSOPscurrent PhD students.

Research day represents an opportunity for our PhD students to presenttheir work to students, staff and external guests and hone theirpresentation skills. Moreover, the day offers the chance for us all toappreciate the breadth and depth of the cutting edge research beingundertaken within Pharmacy. It also provides time and space to networkand discuss the various research ideas with other members of thedepartment - perhaps those with whom we dont usually cross paths.

As has now become traditional, oral presentations were limited to secondand third year PhD students whilst the first year students presentedposters. With over 20 posters presented, there was a real buzz in thebreakout space. It was also well noted that the quality of the platformpresentations was particularly high this year, no doubt encouraged by thegenerous prizes available to each year group.

The winners this year s prizes were:

Poster Prize: Marcus Haag (Supervisors: Dr Ben Whalley & Dr GaryStephens )

2nd Year Prize: Charlotte Hill (Supervisors: Dr Gary Stephens and Dr ClaireWilliams )

3rd Year Prize: Mark Hutchins (Supervisors: Prof. Helen Osborn, Dr JohnBrazier & Dr Richard Bovill )

We are already working on plans for next year s Pharmacy ResearchShowcase, building upon the successful elements of this year s we hope to

extend the networking and poster sessions!

Thank you all for your participation in this important date in the Pharmacycalendar. We would be very grateful for any constructive feedback aboutthe day that you may be to provide. The RSOP Postgraduate ResearchCommittee will meet later this term and the format, conduct and aims ofthe PG Research Showcase for next year will be discussed so yourcomments are welcomed. Please direct comments by email to Dr CheConnon at c. .connon readin .ac.uk .
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Hot Off the Press!

Mun EA, Hannell C, Rogers SE, Hole P,Williams AC, Khutoryanskiy VV(2014) On the role of specific interactions in the diffusion of nanoparticlesin aqueous polymer solutions Langmuir 30: 308-317.

Dr Patrick Lewis is givinga short talk at the

Movement for HopeRewired Neuroscience

event in Bloomsburynext Tuesday 4 th

February. Full details areavailable via this link:

http://www.movementf orhope.org/rewired/

Our efforts to publiciseour research andincrease publicengagement

continued in January!Dr Patrick Lewis and DrBen Whalley deliveredtalks to staff, students

and parents at Queen Annes School,

Caversham on thetopics of Genetics in

Parkinsons Disease and

Challenges Associatedwith Medical Cannabis

respectively.

Funding Successes! Dr Barny Greenland has won a ~50k contract to support a five month,industrially funded post-doctoral research with AWE to synthesize highlyfunctionalized, water soluble dendrimers.

Dr Gary Stephens has won a 1k Physiological Society Outreach Grant topart-fund the first ever Reading Science Slamevent at South Street ArtsCentre (see Page 1 for details of the event!)

Dr Ben Whalley and Dr Angela Bithell have won a 100k grant with DrChris Ward (Manchester) and Dr Richard Wade-Martins (Oxford) via theNC3Rs Un-Tangled CRACK-IT Challenge to develop an in vitro, humanpluripotent stem cell-derived model of tauopathy.

Dr Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy has won a day of neutron scattering beam timefrom ISIS to study the internal micellar structure of temperature-responsive tri-block copolymers in collaboration with researchers fromPrague Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry.

Continuing the lead taken by RSOP during Reading Science Week, Dr MarkDallas, Dr Angela Bithell, Dr Parastou Donyai and Dr Ben Whalley willbe among other UoR staff who will form an expert panel for aNeuroscience Question Time event on Friday 21 st March at 7.00pm atthe Henley Business School .

Complementing the Science Slam (Page 1), the Question Time event willprovide an opportunity for members of the public to pose qestions about

Neuroscience to our expert panel such as: Why are some people lefthanded? How are children able to learn language so rapidly? Why do welike cake and sweets so much? Why are some brain diseases so hard totreat? With experts in Psychology, Regenerative Medicine, TranslationalMedicine, Computational Neuroscience and Cellular and MolecularNeuroscience, we expect a variety of different views and opinions as thedifferent branches of neuroscience collide!

The event is FREE. Booking, question submission and more information arevia: [email protected]

If you would like to submit a question to ask the panel on the night, pleaseinclude your question with your booking email. Guests wishing to submitquestions must do so by 14/03/2014 in order to allow time for questionselection so book early to avoid disappointment!

More information at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/events

Neuroscience Question Time

?
http://www.movementforhope.org/rewired/http://www.movementforhope.org/rewired/http://www.movementforhope.org/rewired/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.reading.ac.uk/eventshttp://www.reading.ac.uk/eventshttp://www.reading.ac.uk/eventshttp://www.reading.ac.uk/eventsmailto:[email protected]://www.movementforhope.org/rewired/http://www.movementforhope.org/rewired/


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Dr Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy delivered an invited talk on "Novel methods forthe synthesis of thiolated nanoparticles for drug delivery applications" atPolymers-2014, 6th All-Russian Kargin Conference on 27 th 31st December2013 in Moscow, Russia.

In addition to attending this conference he "enjoyed" snowy and super-coldweather in Moscow (it was -15 degrees on 27 th), see picture attached), andvisited Shemyakin & Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (RussianAcademy of Sciences) to establish collaborative links with their researchers.

Dr Khutoryanskiy looking frosty!

In addition to representing RSOP whilst in Russia, Dr Khutoryanskiysresearch group have been following his lead as Michael Cook and EnricaCalo presented talks at the 8 th Annual Meeting of RSC BiomaterialsChemistry Group, University of Manchester on the 7 th and 8 th January.

The Khutoryanskiy Tour Continues! Dr Ben Whalley gave an

invited talk at RoyalHolloway, University of

London on 22 nd Januarywhere he spoke about

the preclinicaldevelopment

programme of non-psychoactivecannabinoid-based

medicines.

After a break for theChristmas period, theBNA-funded Cellular

and MolecularNeuroscience Seminar

Series restarts inFebruary.

The first talk will be fromProf. Nigel Hooper

(Leeds) who will talkabout Prion Proteins in

Alzheimers Disease . Asa high profile and

influential scientist, weexpect this keynote talk

to be very exciting withwide-ranging appeal.

Prof. Hoopers talk willbe on 19 th February at4:00pm in Hopkins 101 .

All welcome! Anyqueries to Dr Ben

Whalley or Dr PatrickLewis

Signing Event for Associate Professor inHormesis Post

On 8th

January, the Vice-Chancellor, Sir David Bell , and the Chairman ofGW Pharmaceuticals, Dr Geoffrey Guy met to formally sign the agreementcreating the post of Associate Professor in Hormesis to which RSOPs DrAlistair Nunn has been appointed. The ~250k donation from GWPharma to UoR which has been used to create the post furtherstrengthens the relationship between the two organisations andhighlights the importance of the research being undertaken in RSOP butits real-world impact.


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RSOP Research News 20 Jan 2014