Biosciences Research Newsletter 2013

Breaking news Page 3

Undergraduate news Page 5

Celebrating success Page 7

Events and symposia Page 8

Newsletter Bringing you the latest news from the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent

Inside this edition 2 Welcome 3 Breaking News 7 Undergraduate News 8 Celebrating success 9 Events and symposia 12 Art for science’s sake

School of Biosciences

2013

2 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Welcome

Selected top publications in 2012 Kotiadis V, Leadsham J, Bastow E, Gheeraert A, Whybrew J, Bard M, Lappalainen P, Gourlay CW (2012) Identification of new surfaces of Cofilin that link mitochondrial function to the control of multi-drug resistance. Journal of Cell Science 125, 2288-2299.

Blackburn E, Zona S, Murphy ML, Brown IR, Chan SKW, Gullick WJ (2012) A monoclonal antibody to the human HER3 receptor inhibits Neuregulin 1 beta binding and co-operates with Herceptin in inhibiting the growth of breast cancer derived cell lines. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 134: 53-9.

Cottier F,Raymond M, Kurzai O, Bolstad M, Leewattanapasuk W, Jiménez-López C, Lorenz MC, Sanglard D, Váchová L, Pavelka N, Palková Z, Mühlschlegel FA (2012) The bZIP Transcription Factor Rca1p Is a Central Regulator of a Novel CO(2) Sensing Pathway in Yeast. PLoS Pathogens 8(1) :e1002485..

Rossman JS, Leser GP, Lamb RA (2012).

Filamentous influenza virus enters cells via macropinocytosis. Journal of Virology.

86(20):10950-60.

Welcome to the second of our annual newsletters chronicling the success of the School of Biosciences in 2012.

Amidst the Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and Wimbledon euphoria, Biosciences have been working hard to continue to deliver the highest quality in research, teaching and enterprise. Last year saw the bringing in of nearly £2 million in BBSRC money alone as well as significant enterprise activity including patents filed, Innovation awards and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership grant.

Our publication record continues to grow and this could not be more timely with the impending Research Excellence Framework submission. This year we will have the opportunity to put our best foot forward and present the very best of our research and enterprise activity in a nationally competitive process.

We are pleased to note that our teaching continues to win awards and that our outreach activity goes from strength to strength. We were also honoured to welcome a number of eminent speakers to our Department, not least of whom was Nobel prize winner, Sir Paul Nurse. Finally as you’ll notice from the penultimate page, we have the builders in! The interior of the School is really starting to take shape now and we look forward to welcoming colleagues, visitors and students alike.

Here’s to an equally successful 2013!

Professor Darren Griffin Deputy Head of School

Chu D, von der Haar T. The architecture of eukaryotic translation. Nucleic Acids Research (2012) 40(20):10098-106.

Deery E, Schroeder S, Lawrence AD, Taylor SL, Seyedarabi A, Waterman J, Wilson KS, Brown D, Geeves MA, Howard MJ, Pickersgill RW, Warren MJ. (2012 ) An enzyme-trap approach allows isolation of intermediates in cobalamin biosynthesis.

Nature Chemical Biology 8(11):933-40.

Wass MN, Barton G, Sternberg MJ. (2012) CombFunc: predicting protein function using heterogeneous data sources. Nucleic Acids Research 40:W466-70.

David A, Razali R, Wass MN, Sternberg MJ (2012). Protein-protein interaction sites are hot spots for disease-associated nonsynonymous SNPs. Human Mutation.

33(2):359-63.

Biosciences 2012 photography competition A total of 34 images were submitted to the Biosciences 2012 photography competition themed “Bioscience through my lens”. See back page for more examples.

The winning image entitled, “Pigments of life” was taken by Dr Evelyne Deery

University of Kent School of Biosciences 3

Breaking News

BBSRC successes Darren Griffin Professor of Genetics was successful in his £535,556 application “Genome assembly. chromosomal organization and comparative genomics of multiple bird species: beyond “catalogues of genes” – a joint effort with Dr Denis Larkin of the University of Aberystwyth.

Martin Warren, Professor of Biochemistry also was successful in his £481,242 application entitled “Development of cobalamin surrogates as probes and carriers through synthetic and chemical biology approaches.” The project is based on the work of post-docs in Professor Warren’s lab Evelyn Deery and Martin Lawrence and co-applicants include Dr Mark Howard, Professor Martin Michaelis and Professor Richard Pickersgill (Queen Mary, University of London).

We were delighted to learn that our new colleague Dr Wei-Feng Xue has been awarded £428,736 from the BBSRC for a project entitled “Quantitative investigations into the molecular mechanisms of amyloid fibril fragmentation.”

Mark Smales Professor of Mammalian Cell Biotechnology successfully bid for February £324,213 from the BBSRC for a project entitled “Investigation and manipulation of mTOR cellular signalling to generate novel CHO host cells with high growth and productivity characteristics.”

Recently two of these grants have been highlighted in a recent issue of the Times Higher.

In addition, many other awards were made bringing the total of funding for the year in excess of £2 million.

4 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Breaking News

BBSRC Sparking Impact Award Dr Gary Robinson, Senior Lecturer and Commercialisation Manager at the School of Biosciences, has successfully secured an award on behalf of the University of £100k from the BBSRC. The award has been made to support partners that are strategically aligned with BBSRC, in accelerating and increasing the achievement of optimal impact from BBSRC investments. This Award of £100k will enable the school to fund the highly varied and small scale knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) activities required at the earliest stages of progressing research outcomes towards impact.

Innovation Awards 2012 Innovation, creativity and enterprise were recognised at the University of Kent’s annual Innovation Awards in October 2012.

Members of Kent’s business community and representatives of other partner organisations were welcomed by University Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow to the event, which was held at the Canterbury Innovation Centre.

In addition, Professor Mark Smales was highly commended for the collaboration with Lonza Biologics on the development of Predictive Tools for the Isolation of Highly productive Recombinant Cell Lines.

The BBSRC anticipates learning more as to how this funding will contribute to the excellent impact achieved by the institution over the coming year.

Professor Darren Griffin won both the impact and collaboration awards for the impact of his work in a number of areas of genetics research and his collaboration with The London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre and JSR Genetics Ltd.

Biosciences contract research start-up acquired by major European company

Collaboration with Cytocell

Leverhulme Fellowship Award

A new collaboration between the University of Kent and the Cambridge based company Cytocell has led to the successful application for KTP (knowledge transfer partnership) funding.

The KTP scheme attracts funding from both industry and government (in this case BBSRC and Technology Strategy Board) to develop projects of a mutually beneficial nature. In this case, technology developed in Darren Griffin’s lab involving animal chromosome probes is to be developed into a product line by the company.

Overall the grant is worth £193,961 and Kent (BSc and PhD) graduate Dr Gothami Fonseka was selected as the associate who will deliver the project. As the picture shows Gothami was very pleased about her new position.

Professor Mick Tuite has been awarded a one year Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship beginning September 2012. This will allow Mick to return to the laboratory to carry out a series experiments as part of a project entitled “The natural history of yeast prions”. The aim of the project is to see if yeast prions also exist in ‘wild’ strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other Saccharomyces species and will involve research at Kent plus research visits to the USA and Portugal.

Successful biotech start-up Cangenix, which is based at the University’s School of Biosciences, has been acquired by Argenta, part of Galapagos NV’s service division, one of Europe’s largest contract research organisations.

Cangenix was launched 15 months ago when Professor David Brown, formerly of Pfizer, was appointed chair of Structural Biology at the University. It offers crystallography – a structure-based drug design tool – and biophysics services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

Bioscience research students also benefit from the company’s cutting edge expertise.

Professor Brown said: “I’m hoping there will be opportunities to forge even stronger links between the University and Argenta in the Drug Discovery area.

Cangenix will continue to operate at the School of Biosciences premises, offering structure based drug design contract research through Argenta. But I’m hoping also that we will be able to widen links beyond Biosciences to other areas of synergy within the University.”

University of Kent School of Biosciences 5

Undergraduate summer vacation project seeds high-impact paper

Summer vacation internships for 2nd year undergraduates provide valuable laboratory experience for students whilst being mentored within an active research group. However, they can also contribute significantly to laboratory research, as was found over the summer of 2012 when Biochemistry student, Harriet CrawleySnowdon, engaged in an eight-week placement within the Howard and Williamson laboratories.

Harriet was charged with assessing a new method for measuring protein reduction potentials using NMR spectroscopy; an idea that curiously revealed itself to Dr Howard whilst he was engaged in jury service earlier in the year.

Harriet spent her placement time making proteins and studying them using the Schools 600 MHz spectrometer and she proved the new technique worked very well and was more efficient than existing methods.

Samantha Taylor from the Howard laboratory completed the project in autumn 2012 and on 22 January 2013 the work was published online in the prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Chemical Communications. Also, Samantha’s contribution was supported through the PVC-Research Fund from Professor John Baldock and was equally important to complete the project in a timely manner. Congratulations to Harriet and everyone involved in the project from the Howard and Williamson laboratories in Biosciences.

S.L.Taylor, H.Crawley-Snowdon, J.L.Wagstaff, M.L.Rowe, M.Shepherd, R.A.Williamson and M.J.Howard (2013). Measuring protein reduction potentials using 15N HSQC NMR Spectroscopy.

Chem. Commun (Camb). Accepted manuscript.

DOI:10.1039/C3CC38952A. The paper can be found here: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/ 2013/cc/c3cc38952a

6 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Breaking News

Vitamin variants could combat cancer as scientists unravel B12 secrets In a development that may lead to new drugs to treat cancer, scientists at the University have discovered the process by which a key vitamin (B12) is made in cells.

A team at the University’s School of Biosciences led by Professor Martin Warren devised a method that allows them to study how the individual steps for vitamin B12 construction are pieced together. B12 is an essential nutrient that plays an important role in the formation of red blood cells and the maintenance of the nervous system.

Deficiencies are associated with anaemia, cardiovascular disorders and dementia.

Using techniques of the new discipline of synthetic biology, researchers engineered a conveyor belt of molecular machines for the construction of the vitamin within bacteria.

By varying the length of the assembly line, they were able to unravel how the vitamin is manufactured.

Significantly, the team were also able to alter some of the molecular machines on the conveyor belt and change the form of the vitamin that is made. It is hoped that these novel variant forms of the vitamin will act as important new drugs to treat diseases such as cancer and infections such as tuberculosis (TB).

The team’s research paper An enzyme-trap approach allows isolation of intermediates in cobalamin (vitamin B12) biosynthesis is published in the current edition of the journal Nature Chemical Biology, the leading scientific journal in the field.

Professor Warren, who is Head of the School of Biosciences, said: ‘This is a really important step forward. Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that is only made by bacteria and is not present in plants. Therefore a significant proportion of the world’s population, including vegetarians, are at risk of B12 deficiency. ‘Our work will assist in the generation of better ways of making more of this vitamin available and is also permitting us to make new compounds that will literally allow us to throw a spanner in the works of infections such as TB and diseases such as cancer.’

The School in the news Free advice on reducing cancer risk Reducing the risk of cancer will be the theme of a free information evening... Other speakers include Bill Gullick, Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Kent, medical oncologist Mark Hill and Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific advisor for the World Cancer Research Fund.

Kent Messenger (Sittingbourne Edition) 14/09/2012

Biochemistry gets animated Recent graduates of the computer generate arts and animation degree at University for the creative arts, Rochester, were asked to create computer generated films to explain biological processes in a fun and easy to understand way. They worked with the school of Biosciences at the University of Kent.

Kent Messenger (Sittingbourne Edition) 20/01/2012

Propitious Prions “It’s been a raging debate,” said Professor Mick Tuite, who studies yeast prions at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom and was not involved in the study. www Scientist (us) 16/02/2012

The end of the male gene pool may be overrated...

Scientists looked at the genes of the rhesus macaque and chimpanzee, which split from those of human 25 million years ago. ...”If you draw a straight line, the Y chromosomes demise would come four or five million years from now,” said Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics at the University of Kent.

The Guardian 23/02/2012

Scientist Dr Katie Fowler is doing her bit to prevent flying pigs Pigs might fly at the moment – but that could all change thanks to the pioneering work of one former Paddock Wood schoolgirl. Dr Katie Fowler is a part of a ground-breaking team of scientists spearheading research into In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment www This is Kent (uk) 21/05/2012

Smoking vaccine blocks nicotine in mice brains Professor of genetics at the University of Kent, Darren Griffin, said the findings were “impressive and intriguing with great potential” but cautioned there were still... www BBC News (uk), 28/06/2012

Men who want to delay fatherhood told to freeze sperm as older Darren Griffin, genetics Professor at the University of Kent, said older fathers should not panic as the risk is still small – there are three billion letters in the human DNA code and the number of mutations found was only in the dozens – while the risk from older mothers was ‘far more potent and measurable’.

The Daily Mail 22/08/2012

Why don’t men have a menopause?

Some new findings on the effect of older men fathering children has emerged from a study of genes of Icelandic parents and children.

Professor Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics at the University of Kent, explained what was found from around 80 parents and their children having their genome sequenced for a study. “We’ve known for a while that the sperm of men can decline with age,” he says.

“What we didn’t know is the extent to which its passed on to the offspring.” www Bbc (uk) 23/08/2012

Welcome new colleagues Dr Mark Wass joined the School of Biosciences in October 2012. He obtained his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University in 2000 followed by a Masters in Computing at Imperial College London.

After a few years working in Industry as an IT consultant Mark studied for a PhD with Professor Mike Sternberg at Imperial (2004-2008) and continued onto a post-doctoral position in the group. In 2011 Mark was awarded a FEBS Long Term Fellowship to work in the group of Alfonso

Valencia at the CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, Madrid, Spain).

Mark’s research interests are in Structural Bioinformatics, particularly the analysis and prediction of protein function, structure and interactions. He is also interested in using such approaches to analyse genetic variation and identify the functional effects that are associated with disease.

Biosciences will be expecting 4 more members of academic staff to join the School over the summer, thus bringing a range of new expertise in exciting areas of the biosciences.

University of Kent School of Biosciences 7

Undergraduate News

Developing excellence through practical training

One of the unique challenges of a science degree is the balancing of academic content with practical training. Our practical classes allow students to develop their scientific knowledge and understand their practical significance. They also provide hands-on experience with cutting-edge scientific equipment and key techniques used in the biological sciences. However, in a subject that moves as quickly as the biological sciences, where rapid advances mean that techniques are constantly reinvented, universities need to ensure that they are delivering a training that is in keeping with the demands of employers.

The School of Biosciences has always responded to such challenges and reinvents its curriculum constantly. Our students recognise this, consistently ranking us highly for overall student satisfaction in the National Student Survey. It is also gratifying, but perhaps no surprise given our strong focus on practical skills training, that Kent ranks very well for Graduate Employability: 9th in 2012 and 12th in 2013 (out of almost 100 institutions) according to the Guardian Good University Guide. Nevertheless, the high esteem in which we are held by students, graduates and employers needs to be maintained.

Dr Kay Foster, our outstanding Director of Learning and Teaching, saw an opportunity to update our practical skills training in the current academic year. We have always had a strong focus on practical skills in all of our degree programmes, but this year Dr Foster sought to integrate a range of skills within an extended project, rather than separate practical classes.

She developed an Autumn term extended project in the second year in which students would express, purify and characterise a protein. In doing so, this would give students a true experience of research culture, where they solve their own problems and make their own decisions on experiments. They would also benefit from the world-leading expertise in protein science at the University of Kent so that their experiments would be based on the most modern, cutting edge technology available to science.

The first task was to talk to our research staff and identify a range of proteins that students could work with. “I put out a request to research staff in the School of Biosciences. The range of proteins I was offered was incredible, ranging from enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism to antibody-directed treatments for colorectal cancer. I was then able to work with expert staff

within our research laboratories to develop suitable procedures that would allow students to produce and purify the proteins and also to establish their biological functions.”

“Students have been able to gain experience of research at a very early stage of their university careers”, Dr Foster explained. “But in doing so, they have also gained a range of practical skills that are widely used in academic and industrial research environments. So as well as the transferable research skills that employers value, they are also able to add a range of cutting edge technical skills to their CVs”. In doing so, students have also recognised that the work has prepared them very effectively for their final year of study in which they undertake an extended research project.

Sometimes the best element of working in a university is that academic staff can learn as much as the students. “That is how it should be”, said Dr Foster. “I have gained a tremendous amount from the reinvention of our second year practical training. We can always learn more about a subject. This is precisely what we expect of our students. We expect it of ourselves too!”

8 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Celebrating success

Kent around the world

Award-winning teaching The recent Kent Union Teaching Awards saw three staff making the shortlist for all three categories of award: Best Teacher (Dr Peter Klappa), Fantastic Feedback (Dr Peter Nicholls) and postgraduates who Teach (Alex Moores, a PhD student who was recognised for her work in assisting students with practical work). A further 16 members of staff were recognised by students for the quality of their teaching, each receiving a prestigious mug! This recognition is in addition to the National Teaching Fellowship awarded to Dr Dan Lloyd by the Higher Education Academy that selects the best 50 university teachers annually from nominations across the UK. Dr Lloyd remains one of only 25 National Teaching Fellows in the UK within the Biological Sciences, and one of only 5 across the University of Kent.

Did you know?

UCAS applications to the School of Biosciences have increased year-on-year since 2005, and this year alone has seen an increase in applications of 29% compared to last year. This is a strong endorsement of the School’s strong performance in national league tables, the recognised quality of our degree programmes and our excellent record of graduate employability.

The School of Biosciences has always been very proud of its international reputation. We have undergraduate students, postgraduate students, short term visitors and and staff from all corners of the globe, bringing a cosmopolitan atmosphere to the learning environment that benefits us all.

Recent developments have increased opportunities available to our students. A strong link with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia has permitted Study Abroad opportunities in the Far East, while four students have now undertaken exciting Sandwich Year placements at the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) in Thailand. Recent developments in North America have led to a number of vibrant student exchanges with institutions in California, Virginia and Massachusetts. We are in the process of developing further partnerships in the USA, Hong Kong and Istanbul, adding further choice and flexibility to our degree programmes.

The School of Biosciences has celebrated a new international milestone: the first PhD student supervised by a Kent member of staff, while at an overseas institution, graduated in November 2012. Dr Abdullah Al Mutery graduated with a PhD in Genetics after successfully completing a thesis on the genome of the Gyr falcon, the national emblem of the United Arab Emirates.

Dr Al Mutery was supervised by Professor Darren Griffin in collaboration with the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) in Dubai, where most of the lab work was undertaken.

Biosciences will be continuing to expand its portfolio, thus providing external students from many other countries the opportunity to study and graduate at PhD level.

University of Kent School of Biosciences 9

Events and symposia

Record turnout for Biosciences Outreach September saw the first MBP2 day of the 2012/13 academic year, with record numbers of students queuing to take part in this school-led research project. MBP2 (the Myelin Basic Protein Project) was conceived in 2008 by Dr David Colthurst, biology teacher at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys and a former postgraduate student in the School of Biosciences.

MBP2 is one example among the School of Biosciences’ outreach portfolio that has demonstrable impact. Since conception of the project, the numbers of students studying biology at the Simon Langton has more than doubled.

The project has also raised awareness of multiple sclerosis, with increasing numbers of students acting as occasional volunteer helpers or fund-raisers for the MS Society Centre neighbouring the school. MBP2 has now gone on to inspire similar projects by School/University partnerships across England, under the Wellcome Trust funded “Authentic Biology” programme. The School of Biosciences also recently applied for a Guardian Higher Education award based on their involvement in this pioneering project.

Wain Medal Lecture 2012 Congratulations to Dr Edward Tate from the Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London and winner of the 2012 Wain Medal.

The Medal presentation was preceded by a lecture entitled “Using chemistry to target protein modification in disease” which took place in Woolf Lecture Theatre on the Canterbury Campus. The large audience comprising the Wain family, students, staff, local schoolchildren and public members were treated to an excellent lecture describing Dr Tate’s groundbreaking research.

The Wain Medal is awarded annually in memory of Professor Louis Wain to a young scientist working at the interface of chemistry and biology.

Stacey Symposium 2013 to include launch of Stacey Fund To commemorate the late Professor Ken Stacey, the School of Biosciences has initiated the ‘Stacey Symposium’. This is an annual event, this year the 3rd Stacey Symposium will be held on 8th April 2013.

At the Symposium we invite back former students and staff to give talks on a chosen theme, the theme for the 3rd Symposium will be A career beyond the laboratory. The aim is to illustrate the range of careers our alumni have followed and we hope will inspire current students to think broadly about their career opportunities once they leave Canterbury. We also invite a wide range of alumni to the event.

In addition to the formal proceedings of the day, we will also be using the Symposium to launch the Stacey Fund. This fund – supported by donations from Kent Biosciences’ alumni – will provide current students with the opportunity to broaden their horizons during their undergraduate or postgraduate studies through work experience during the vacations.

Former members of the School, students or staff are invited to attend

10 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Events and symposia

Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse On 10 July 2012, Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse was given a warm welcome by students and staff when he delivered our 20th Annual Postgraduate Symposium lecture. Sir Paul is the current President of the Royal Society, London, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for his genetics research on protein molecules and their impact on cells. He is currently Director and Chief Executive of the Francis Crick Institute.

Earlier in the day, Sir Paul was made an Honorary Graduate of the University at the morning Congregation ceremony in Canterbury Cathedral.

Fresh from the ceremony, Sir Paul, presented awards to our undergraduate students lucky enough to have been nominated for prizes in recognition of their hard work, academic excellence and contribution to the school.

Doctor Doctor Congratulations to the following students for successfully negotiating their vivas and being awarded their PhDs. Christopher Alexander Abdullah Al Mutery Luisa De Sordi Ifeoma Ezeigwe Marc Feary Vassilios Kotiadis Stephanie Magub Wesley Naeimi Mohammad-Reza Nasiri-Avanaki Ricardo Neto Marchante Danielle Owen Nagulan Ratnarajah Alan Scott

New Master’s programme The MSc in Drug Design will run for the first time in September 2013. The programme has been designed by Professor David Brown, formerly Director of Structural Biology at Pfizer, bringing a strong industrial focus and insight into the drug discovery process. The MSc in Drug Design is the newest in our excellent suite of postgraduate taught programmes in Cancer Biology, Reproductive Medicine, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and Science, Communication and Society.

KFG Olympiad 2013 At the end of July and after minutes of training, members of the Kent Fungal Group assembled for the very first KFG Olympiad. With four ‘nations’ represented at the Olympiad, Psimoa (team leader Mick Tuite), Barbudos (team leader Campbell Gourlay), Psiprus (team leader WeiFeng Xue) and Saudi Haarabia (team leader Tobias von der Haar). The opening ceremony with the ‘dry ice’ torch brought tears to the eyes.... Competition for the 12 ‘gold’ medals on offer was always going to be tough – and so it proved to be. The opening event – the ‘100 (yellow) tip sprint’ proved to be a thriller with the on form Emma Bastow (team Psimoa) taking the gold in new national record time. Throughout the afternoon there were some remarkable performances including two golds for visiting statistician Vasilios Giagos in the ‘Guess the cell number’ and ‘Weigh off’ events, where bioscientists were expected to do well. The only team event, the ‘pipette relay’, was won by Barbudos with an impressive last minute surge.

After three hours on intense world class competition, with 5 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals, team Psipmoa headed the medals table as the last event, the ‘Petri dishcus’ was completed with the gold deservedly going to Psimoan Dan Smethurst.

University of Kent School of Biosciences 11

Upgrades to the Stacey and Ingram Buildings

Both of the buildings that house Biosciences are in the process of a major upgrade to create a better working environment for staff and students. It is estimated that the total spent will be around ÂŁ2 million. The work includes repairs to services and fire-stopping work and has now progressed to all corridors being stripped and refurbished, with walls, floors, ceilings, cupboard doors, fire-doors undergoing a complete makeover. The balustrades of the main staircases have been replaced with a metal and glass design and we look forward to the extensive remodelling and refurbishment of entrances and their foyers. Completion time is expected to be March 2013.

12 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Art for science’s sake

Follow us! @bio_kent www.facebook.com/pages/SchoolOf-Biosciences/205851959435612 blogs.kent.ac.uk/biosciences/

Biosciences 2012 photography competition The Biosciences 2012 photography competition themed “Bioscience through my lens” saw images of outstanding quality in the entries. Here are some examples, including the winners whose images conveyed the many facets of Biosciences.

From upper left to lower right are: Evelyne Deery, “Pigments of life”; Wesley Naeimi, “D.I.Y laser microscopy”; Tobias von der Haar, “Colours of Biology”, Tarun Singh, “Lab”, Dimitrios Ladakis, “The Crystal Maze”, Samantha Lynn, “Reflective cylinder”; Kevin Howland, “The Biomolecular Science Facility in ‘model’ form”; and Susanne Schroeder, “When things go wrong”.

Art meets science As part of a project that uses art to explore scientific findings and processes, the School of Biosciences hosted a workshop in which artists from across the UK spent a day undertaking scientific experiments using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a cornerstone of genetic technology. Six artists, coupled with six scientists, led to a stimulating day of mutual discovery and sharing of ideas.

School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NJ T: +44 (0)1227 823743 or 827580

www.kent.ac.uk/bio/

School of Biosciences

DPC 114563 02/13

The remarkably simple process of PCR is to be represented by these artists in a gallery exhibition to be held in the Sidney Cooper Gallery in November 2012, and students from the School of Biosciences will be assisting with planning, support and running the exhibition. Communicating science has been a very important part of the scientific culture within the school and we are looking forward to exploring how art can express scientific ideas and practices to the general public in this exciting exhibition.