IPA Update: What’s it like to work for Nature?

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By the IPA committee

Thursday 23rd May saw the IPA’s second Science Lives Seminar. Following on from our first talk about the realities of establishing an independent research group in academia, the IPA wanted to explore what else a post-doc can do. What are our alternative careers?

To start answering this question, we invited Dr Andrew Jermy, a senior editor at Nature, to give us a talk on his career in journal editing.


Postdocs waiting to hear either (a) how to publish their papers in Nature or (b) how to work for Nature

Dr Jermy’s talk started by illustrating his personal experience. Like all of us, he completed a PhD in the biological sciences field and then did two short post-docs before he decided to leave academia to start a career in editing, first at Nature Cell Biology, followed by  Nature Reviews Microbiology and now more recently at Nature. To achieve this, he used his networking skills as he had met someone currently working for Nature at conference. Hint, keep building up your contacts! It was very interesting for us all to understand the motivations that brought him to try a new and alternative career. “Getting bored of waiting for westerns to come out of the developer”, he repeated several times.  Maybe he is not the only one?

Dr Jermy also described the several different job entry levels possible at Nature, something that applies generally to many of the larger scientific journals.  We now have a much better idea of what working for a scientific journal actually entails and where we could slot in. He pointed out that in this kind of career you need a keen interest in all science, as well as being constantly on top of the cutting edge research in your specific editing field. The ability assimilate information quickly and handle up to 40-50 papers per month, while travelling to conferences and universities is also a must. On the other hand, Dr Jermy underlined that his job is not a simple 9-5 job.  However, he can work from home and with the advantage of a permanent position as well as opportunities for career progression, this can make his career more family-friendly than what we post-docs are used to. Ultimately, this career seems ideal for those post-docs who no longer enjoy working at the bench, but still enjoy the other aspects of scientific life, such as reading, writing and networking at conferences.

Andrew demonstrates the Nature ‘secret handshake’

There was however much more to Dr Jermy’s talk than the career side… he gave practical tips to post-docs who want (or maybe its better to say wish) to submit a paper to Nature; from the title to the covering letter, from the abstract to the “style” of writing. Dr Jermy made a clear point that the philosophy of the journal is not to bin 90% of the papers they receive, but to focus on helping the top 10% of the articles emerge and get published. Finally, did you know you can send a pre-submission enquiry to Nature, asking if your scientific results are of interest before going through the long and painful online submission? Helpful for everyone!

After the seminar there was an informal chat-session, useful for post-docs to ask questions in a relaxed environment, helped of course by a beer in our hands!

The IPA wishes everyone a nice Summer and we will see you all for our next social event: a barbecue in September, a perfect occasion to give a warm welcome to new post-docs joining ICAMB as well as for all the current post-docs and final year PhD students to get together for the beginning of a new academic year.

Updates will follow on the website.

IPA Committee

IPA is run by Postdocs, for Postdocs. Get involved!

Links

IPA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/462376430446559
Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biosciences: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/camb/
Newcastle University: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/
Nature Journal: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
Andrew Jermy’s twitter page: https://twitter.com/jermynation

Leading the Way: Inspiring through science

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by Phil Aldridge

“I normally do not like science, but…”

Leonie, Science Set G2, Year 8, George Stephenson High School

This is the opening comment to one of the feedback statements from the 180+ Year 8 students at George Stephenson High School in Killingworth who participated in Leading the Way last week. Leading the Way was coordinated by Leading Edge in collaboration with ICaMB. Leonie’s comment sums up a very inspirational week a team of 15 early career scientists from the Faculty of Medicine had at her school.

Leading the Way was developed based on feedback I had received from Teachers involved in Leading Edge, who wanted to know if it was possible to develop something to work with their year groups rather than just 6 chosen students. After discussions with our Director Rob Lightowler it was agreed to run a pilot scheme to combine the requests of the Teachers involved in Leading Edge and ICaMB’s drive to explore alternative routes to promote our science to the wider community.

We were very lucky to find a school like George Stephenson High School. The School have been a brilliant partner, willing to work with us to develop a program to allow our young scientists to interact with Year 8 (12-13 years old) during one week of their science lessons. A note to worried supervisors and Institute Director – this may sound a lot but in reality each of us involved in running Leading the Way had 12 direct contact hours.

With the help of the science department, we split the year group into teams of 7-9 students based on their science sets.

Our timetable was as follows:

Day 1: Year 8 off timetable to experience “Science in Action”

Day 2-4: We used the timetabled science lessons (2 per set) to create a poster on the topic chosen for the week. Each group worked with one of our scientist team.

Day 5: There was a poster competition with the winning entry earning a day visiting ICaMB.

Some of the Day 1 high points included the isolation of DNA from strawberries, using the isolation of apple juice to experience enzymes in action and playing with alien blood (milk with blue food colouring – see above).

On Day 5, while their posters were being judged, each team built a tower out of 200 straws and sellotape. The goal was to build the tallest self standing straw tower capable of holding a 50 ml Falcon tube containing sweets. We had expected them to require some guidance. However, to everyone’s surprise, Teachers and Scientists alike, all offers of help were refused as the entire year group wanted to do this task alone.

Then the prize giving. We came up with a series of competitions: Best Team Name, Most Visual Experiment, Most Accurate Experiment, Most Volume of Juice isolated, Largest Tower, Best Poster Design and the Big one: Best Idea.

Accuracy and volume were decided on a bar chart and standard curve the teams were asked to produce. This was based on one meeting had with the Science department who suggested we explore data analysis with the students in some way.

Our Judges were ICaMBs own Dave Bolam, Kevin Waldron, Paula Salgado and GSHS Head Ian Wilkinson.

A highlight for the entire Leading the Way team was experiencing the enthusiasm for science from students of all abilities. The winning team who will be visiting ICaMB was Au from Set S1 with their very artistic poster on Mad Cow Disease.

A big thank you goes out to:

– the Leading the Way team: From ICaMB Kayleigh Smith, Simon Syvertsson, Lauren Drage, Martin Sim, Mark Turner, Sarah Billington, Lorna Young, Nichola Conlon & Pippa Harvey and from ICM, IAH, NICR and ION: Elizabeth Gemmel, Laura Mottram, Emma Woodward, Karen Fisher, Joseph Willet, Sanjay Vijay

– the George Stephenson High School Science Department:  lead by Andy Williams and our Liasons Dr James Henderson and Rachel Grimmer.

– the ICaMB supervisors: for allowing the ICaMB LTW team members for being part in this truly inspirational pilot: Mike Gray, David Thwaites, Colin Brown, Caroline Austin, Phil Aldridge, Leendert Hamoen, Brendan Kenny and Jeremy Brown.

Watch this space – we aim to have a second blog post in a few weeks describing their visit….

British Society for Medical Mycology meeting – on fungal pathogens and the mycobiome

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We’ve all heard about the human microbiome, a term usually referring to the bacterial organisms inhabiting the human body and its interactions with our bodies. Research published in Nature this week focuses on an often neglected part of our microbiome:  the rich fungal community, ie, the mycobiome! So this is the perfect time to highlight the annual meeting of the British Society for Medical Mycology hosted by Newcastle University in April.

 

The meeting was organised by ICaMB’s Julian Rutherford, Julian Naglik (King’s College London) and Riina Richardson (BSMM treasurer, Manchester University) with excellent support from Adam O’Neill. Julian Rutherford and Jan Quinn tell us what happened.

 

 

 

by Julian Rutherford & Jan Quinn

Candida albicans infection of oral mucosa - an example of nasty fungal infections

The BSSM meeting is the premier conference in the UK for researchers studying human fungal infections. These fungi can cause a wide range of infections, ranging from ‘thrush’ to severe systemic infections acquired in hospitals.

It was great to host this meeting in Newcastle this year and very gratifying that, with almost 100 delegates, this was the best attended meeting in recent years. However, the meeting got off to a somewhat interesting start as both national and international leaders in the medical mycology field arrived at Newcastle just as Sunderland beat ‘The Toon’ 3-0. It took some explaining, especially to our international colleagues, why there were more police than people on the streets of Newcastle… We were particularly pleased to welcome Professor El Sheik Mahgoub (University of Khartoum) who was present at the first BSMM annual meeting 49 years ago.

Reflecting the diverse nature of the BSMM membership, poster presentations and talks covered all aspects of Medical Mycology, including genomics, systems biology; cool tools and new infection models; pathogenicity mechanisms; and fungal immunity. Newcastle labs were well represented with Jan Quinn chairing a session, and 5 presentations from post-docs and PhD students from the Quinn and Lilic groups.

One of the most entertaining talks was given by Prof David Underhill, who highlighted the importance of fungi within the human microbiome (an aspect us fungal fanatics often find neglected!). Not only did his data clearly support the presence of a rich fungal community in the gut – the “mycobiome” – but that colonisation with specific fungal species can trigger immune responses and consequently inflammatory diseases such as colitis.

We were also treated to some amazing 3D images of the fungal infection process in a whole animal model  by Simon Johnston.

Visualising the progression of cryptococcosis infection using zebrafish. Cryptococci are expressing GFP (green) and zebrafish are labelled for filamentous actin (red).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lars Erwig also provided amazing visualisation of fungal infections with his images of C. albicans infecting macrophages:

Candida (top right, budding cell) infecting a macrophage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, the pinnacle of the meeting was the Foundation lecture given by Scott Filler. Scott has led the field in understanding Candida albicans invasion of host cells which is a key to this fungal pathogen causing life threatening systemic infections. Highlights of his talk included the identification of the invasins that induce human host cells to take up the fungus and the generation of an anti-Candida vaccine raised against one of these invasions that protects mice from systemic Candida infections.

As in previous years, one session consisted of talks by PhD students with Shirley Tang (King’s College London) taking home the £100 prize money for best student talk with her presentation on the role of the Candida albicans protein Ece1 in damaging oral epithelial cells. The prize for best student poster was awarded to Robert Evans (University of Birmingham) for his poster describing his work on the role of phospholipase B in cryptococcal pathogenesis.

The Sing Song Book!

 

The meeting is also a very social event: the annual dinner was a great success with BSMM president Chris Kibbler giving his usual entertaining after dinner speech. This was followed by the traditional sing-song led by Professor Frank Odds on piano and a few croaky voices at the sessions the following day! As usual, few could resist joining in on the all time favourite Bohemian Rhapsody!

Prof Frank Odds with the lead singers (left) and an enthusiastic chorus (left)

 

 

This year the meeting concluded with a Career Workshop for Medical Mycologists, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology, of which Newcastle University is a consortium member. Jan Quinn gave (honest!) advice on the post-doc to PI transition, and there were also talks on non-academic and clinical career paths. This was finished by an interactive CV writing session led by Prof. Al Brown from Aberdeen University – ‘photographs on CVs?’ was a heavily debated point! And the agreed view was: don’t include them! What do you think – please let us know by adding a comment!

This was a very successful meeting and it will surely be remembered by those attending. For all those interested in fungal pathogens – see you next year!

More details on BSMM: 

The BSMM has approximately 350 members from all over the British Isles, Europe and the USA and includes clinicians, clinical scientists and research scientists. The Newcastle meeting was the last to be held with Chris Kibbler as BSMM president. Professor Rosemary Barnes (Cardiff) takes over as president and the 50th BSMM meeting will be held in Manchester.

 

Links

British Society of Medical Mycology: http://www.bsmm.org/

Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mmfi/

 

 

Spills and pills: thrills for a structural biologist

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One of the newest recruits to ICaMB is Professor Bert van den Berg, who arrived here in December 2012.  Bert is already off to a great start having been awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in April.  Here we have asked him to tell us why he decided to join ICaMB and the research that lead up to this prestigious award.

By Bert van den Berg


Bert, looking thrilled

I joined ICaMB in January, coming from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, where I was a tenured faculty member in the Program in Molecular Medicine. While I had a great and productive time in this department, after eight years I felt increasingly isolated academically and started to look for another position. ICaMB seemed a great fit for my research interests, with a large number of scientists interested in bacterial biochemistry and cell biology. Since ICaMB was also looking to strengthen its efforts in structural biology, the decision to cross the pond and join ICaMB wasn’t a very hard one. I am happy to be here, and I hope and expect that my expertise in membrane protein structural biology will also be a benefit for the faculty within ICaMB and will lead to successful collaborations.

My lab has been studying protein channels (see below) for about nine years. Determining structures is really the only way to obtain deep insights into protein function. In addition, seeing a new protein structure for the first time is often an “aha!” moment and, at least for me, the closest thing to a true discovery in modern science. In any case, the importance of structural biology for science is clear from the large number of Nobel prizes awarded to the field over the years.

What do the cleanup of oil spills and the treatment of many bacterial infections have in common? The answer is that both processes depend on the efficient passage of bacterial membranes by small molecules.

Oil spills and antibiotics have more in common than you may realise

Gram-negative bacteria are surrounded by two lipid membranes, which are termed plasma membrane and outer membrane. The outer membrane borders the cell and is a very efficient and sturdy barrier that protects the cell from noxious substances in the external environment, such as bile acids in the case of E. coli bacteria living in the gut. However, since bacteria also require nutrients for growth and function, protein channels are present in the outer membrane to allow the uptake of such small molecules. In our work we use X-ray crystallography to determine the atomic 3D structures of the channels, most of which are shaped like hollow barrels. Based on the structures we propose transport models, which we then test by characterisation of mutant proteins.

Many Gram-negative bacteria are able to use industrial pollutants such as oil as food sources, a process called biodegradation. The enzymes that catalyse these remarkable processes are located inside the cell but not much is known about how the pollutants enter the cell in the first place, something that is clearly required before they can be degraded. We study the highly specialised channels that mediate the uptake of these water-insoluble (“hydrophobic”) molecules. In addition, we are interested in discovering cellular adaptations that allow biodegrading bacteria to grow on these toxic compounds. We think that this research may lead to insights that will aid the design of bacterial strains that are optimised not only for bioremediation but also for important other processes such as production of biofuels.

The other main focus of research in my lab is to understand how antibiotics “hijack” outer membrane channels to enter bacteria. Being water-soluble, antibiotics are dependent on protein channels for membrane passage. Bacteria that are under antibiotic pressure will often change or remove the channels through which antibiotics pass, resulting in resistance.

Movie showing ampicillin movement through E coli OmpF protein channel. The view is from the outside of the cell. Movie made by Matteo Ceccarelli (University of Cagliari).

In concert with other mechanisms such as enzymatic degradation and increased efflux by pumps, this acquired antibiotic resistance has the potential to become a huge and global problem in public health. New drugs are therefore urgently needed. The problem is that not nearly enough new drugs are currently in pharmaceutical pipelines, due to the costly and risky nature of antibiotic development. However, pharmaceutical companies are starting to realise that the fundamentals of drug design need to change, and that they have to collaborate with academic labs that are studying the basic biology of small molecule membrane transport.

My lab is participating in an exciting, EU-funded joint venture between big pharma, small biotech firms and academic labs aiming to understand the influx/efflux of drugs in a number of pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria. Beyond the potential benefits for drug design, it is hoped that this project will change the way in which industry and academia work together to benefit public health.

 

Links

Royal Society Wolfson Merit Awards: http://royalsociety.org/news/2013/new-wolfson-research-merit-awards/

Bert’s ICaMB homepage: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/camb/staff/profile/bert.van-den-berg

Newcastle Structural Biology website: http://sbl.ncl.ac.uk/people/bert_research.shtml

Structural Biologist Nobel Prize Winners: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/docs/nobel/nobels.html

IMI TRANSLOCATION project: http://www.imi.europa.eu/content/translocation

Why PAN!C?

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ICaMB’s PhD and Master students now have their own Network – PAN!C. Here they tell us about the network, its aims and activities so far, as well as plans for the future.

by the PAN!C committee

The idea for a Postgraduate Network in ICaMB – PAN!C – was conceived in Campus Coffee in November 2012 by Claire Whitworth and Kerrie Brusby in the hope of uniting the near 90 postgraduate students within the institute. Since then, the PAN!C committee has gained 5 more committee members: Beth Lawry, Monica Piatek, Jonathon Briggs, Max Temple and Adam Crawshaw. The aim of PAN!C is to strengthen the community of postgraduate students around the institute and, in particular, improve interactions between the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology and Medical School building laboratories, enhancing both the academic and social experiences of students within the institute.

Jeff’s talk for PAN!C

Our first academic event back in March and was a real success, with a strong turnout of over 50 students to a career talk given by Professor Jeff Errington. His talk was based on his journey from being a student through to becoming an academic at the very top of his field and balancing his thriving business ventures with the stresses of academia.

We are currently planning our next academic event, again about careers but from a new perspective, which we’ll have more information about soon. We are hoping over the next few months to invite more speakers and if you have any suggestions of whom you might like to hear from or a subject that you would like to see covered, please email us!

Over the past 4 months we’ve also had a number of social events ranging from pub quizzes to laser questing, events which have had a good turnout and positive feedback from students. We have plenty of more events up our sleeve so keep an eye out for emails and posters advertising them soon!

 

PAN!C are currently applying for support from the University so that we can have more great events in the future, particularly for academic events, such as talks, workshops and more. To help us obtain this support we would really appreciate it if you could complete our very short survey, it takes less than 2 minutes.

For any questions about PAN!C or to suggest an idea for an event, be it academic or social please get in touch  with the PAN!C committee. We want PAN!C to be all about the postgraduate students in the Institute so we want students to have influence on what we do, get involved with our events and have fun! We are really grateful for the support shown by students, academics and the institute as a whole and hope that this continues so that an even bigger PAN!C ensues.

 

Links

PAN!C: https://www.facebook.com/pages/PANIC/522401521125495?fref=ts
Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biosciences: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/camb/
Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology : http://www.ncl.ac.uk/cbcb/
PAN!C survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PLHLBHC

IPA Update: Pub Quiz and Nature Editor visit

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April 27th saw the ICaMB postdoc association (IPA)’s second social event with a Friday Night at the North Terrace pub.  Here the IPA committee describes the evening and upcoming VERY IMPORTANT EVENT

By the IPA

All those involved with the IPA social evening and pub quiz thought it was a terrific success, with a good turn out of Postdocs and final year PhD students letting off some steam after their hard week at work.


The pub quiz. Postdocs hard at work.

It was a great night and we all enjoyed the drinks and delicious North Terrace food, including generous portions of tasty potato skins and pizzas, which were very much approved of (even by Alessio). While some got serious over a game of darts, others chatted over pints – however the best part of the night was by far the PUB QUIZ.


Who is this man? One of the tough questions at the IPA pub quiz. Fortunately everyone got this one right.

The IPA committee prepared the questions with an international angle that went down well with our multi-national postdoc community.  It was amusing to see the quality team-work used to answer questions on intercontinental cuisine and different languages. Particularly with the question “how does a Geordie spell the word home?”* Although the Italian Quiz Master occasionally struggled to read the questions in a ‘proper’ English accent, this just kept the postdocs on the ball! We had 4 competing teams, with every team randomly formed with different lab members, so everyone got to know and chat with new people.

Victory went to the ‘baby PINK team’ after winning the tie break question with their closest answer to “What is the length of the River Nile?”** Not easy! Their 1st place prize was North Terrace Deli sandwich vouchers. Yummy!


The result. A close run thing.

The IPA committee is looking forward to our next social; a barbecue in September!  We are in the process of seeking a good venue!

Before this we have our next Science Lives Seminar with the invited Nature Microbiology senior editor Dr Andrew Jermy giving an exclusive talk to our Postdocs and final year PhDs. Get Thursday 23rd May 4pm blocked now in your busy diaries – you can’t miss hearing about how this former postdoc established a career in editing for one of the most renowned journals in our field. We, as postdocs, need to keep our career options open, and this does not seem like a bad one! The PIs are perhaps even more excited than us about his visit, not that they are invited to the seminar (haha unlucky), but we can expect some serious sweet-talking in Andrew Jermy’s tight schedule of meetings with ICaMB academics the following day! We all know that PIs don’t have much time, but all of them have managed to rearrange their outlook calendars for this guest!

* Answer is ‘yem’
** Answer is 6,650 km (4,130 miles)

If you have any suggestions for themes for future events please  get in touch with the IPA committee.

 

Links

IPA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/462376430446559
Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biosciences: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/camb/
Newcastle University: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/
Nature Journal: http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
Andrew Jermy’s twitter page: https://twitter.com/jermynation

The Great Bacterial Bake Off

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Ready, Study, Bake! Phil Aldridge set out this challenge for his students and tells us all about the amazing results – and how it is all about engaging with students in innovative and fun ways.

@ScoobyWaffs: I am loving the #GreatBacterialBakeOff tweets! I’ve never wanted E. coli in my belly as much as I do now! #cake

@jeanmadams: Who would have thought lab scientists could have so much fun with cake! Definitely look at #GreatBacterialBakeOff

If you ask a scientist to do something outside their defined barriers they come up with creations that look amazing.

The pictures and quotes in this post were all generated after I challenged our Stage 2 Medical Microbiology students to a “Great Bacterial Bake Off”, which took place at lunchtime on Friday 26th April.  After the very positive response to tweeting pictures of these creations, we have uploaded an album of the creations to both the ICaMB and School for Biomedical Science (in progress) Facebook pages and collected the twitter action on storify. The quotes and images speak for themselves.  This was a nice, and hopefully successful, way to make some noise about Microbiology studies at Newcastle University, not strictly through our academic exploits but through CAKE!

The Background:

There was no criteria set for this challenge except they had to focus on bacteria that they had come across in their course. Wow, did they deliver! Well done all of you.

Since advertising this event, there was a clear buzz on the grapevine asking what I was up to. The occasional probing question to a student brought forth comments “Oh this is going to get competitive” and “someone has bought chickenwire!” (Chickenwire???)

I will admit the decision to tweet the results was a bit of an experiment in itself as I had not tried something like this before. Since I was lecturing the Stage 2 students on Diagnostic Microbiology earlier in the week, I checked if they were fine if we went online with this experiment. One student got the ball rolling on Thursday evening with a proud tweet of one entry, which gave us the hashtag #GreatBacterialBakeOff. The rest is now history…

The reason:

I was looking for a way to drive what could have been a rather dull discussion about our Medical Microbiology degree, into something with a fun twist.  Not enough experiments in the lab result in edible end products (at least if you are obeying all health and safety instructions) so a bake off seemed like a way to make people think while overcoming this scientific shortcoming.

We can, at times, forget the need to not only teach our undergraduates but also engage with them. In fact, a workshop has been organised for the Higher Education Academy here in Newcastle on Student Engagement in Education. Being able to interact, in an informal manner, can have great benefits for everyone involved. This does not have to be only at the Academic-Student interface. Indeed this is partly what both PANIC and IPA are doing in ICaMB at the moment. What is important is that it is fun, works both ways and you can get a chance to communicate.

ICaMB Academics mainly lecture on the portfolio of undergraduate degrees offered through the School of Biomedical Sciences. I have recently taken over the coordination of Biomedical Science with Medical Microbiology (UCAS BC95). The custodian of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, this week proclaimed that lectures are doomed. I disagree with this statement. Yes, not everyone is going to be able to deliver the perfect lecture but we can sure try to find complimentary ways in which to engage with our students at the undergraduate and postgraduate level to inspire them to learn and hopefully stay in a Science related career.

The winning cake

Health Warning: Having such a bake off creates quite a few cakes – eating said cakes (it was part of the competition for best effort) means you end up eating a serious amount of sugar. A number of participants, me included, suffered from “icing” overdose! So, if you do think about doing something similar, you may want to co-ordinate it to be a cake sale so you do not end up trying to eat all the entries!

A personal overview of the Science is Vital “R&D to 0.8%” campaign

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by Paula Salgado

Science is Vital is a grass roots campaign of UK scientists and supporters of science who believe that a strong science base is vital to the UK’s economy and reputation. It launched its latest initiative to persuade the Government to increase investment in research and  development (R&D) in the 2015-16 budget, details of which will be announced on June 26. ICaMB’s blog own Paula Salgado, member of the Science is Vital Executive Committee, recalls the earlier campaigns and explains all about the current petition and ongoing survey.

Background

It all started in September 2010, when a speech by the then recently appointed BIS secretary, Vince Cable, and rumours from the Government suggested major cuts – up to 25-35% – could hit the science budget. That led Jenny Rohn to a call for action and many scientists and non-scientists responded.

I am happy and proud to say I was of the initial wave of supporters. In only a few hours, there’s a Facebook page, in next couple of days the domain was registered and a  page created: the Science is Vital campaign was born. From the first moment, there was a clear intent to make this campaign about a key point: cutting science funding is not good for the economy. For me, having taken part in many demonstrations and campaigns as a student back in Portugal, this was a crucial point that made believe this was a campaign with a difference.

Delivering Science is Vital petition with ~33K signatures to N.10 (Photo by Joe Dunckley)

 

A petition gathered over 33,000 signatures in roughly 6 weeks, including many notable scientists and public figures, as well as the support of many learned societies, patient organisations and other NGO groups.

 

 

Lobbying Parliament to protect Science Funding (2010)

 

The campaign also included letters to MPs and a parliamentary lobby session, where we had an opportunity to directly address the issues with our representatives.

 

 

Finally, the campaign culminated with a rally in front of the Treasury:

Scientists in white lab coats and many non-scientist supporters at the rally in October 2010

Stewarding at the rally

I was there, helping as a steward (still not sure how that happened!) and seeing a constant stream of white coats and many non-scientist supporters streaming from the tube station was a very memorable sight. I even met a Portuguese colleague that had also been in many of those demonstrations back home and we couldn’t help comparing the situations and behaviours.

The result: cash-freeze

Despite the massive support gathered in such a short period of time, many of those involved, including me, were still unsure of how successful we could be at avoiding cuts… When the announcements were made and it was revealed that the science budget would be frozen for the next 4 years, we felt relieved, happy. I must admit I was also surprised: this was the first campaign I had taken part that was somewhat successful!

However, this was clearly a bitter-sweet victory: we were protected from deep cuts, but a cash-freeze means at least a 10% reduction in real terms due to inflation alone and cuts of up to 50% in capital spending and in many departments R&D budgets meant this was not great news for science in the UK in the long term.

Inspired by this result, SiV has continued to campaign, focusing on issues such as Science Careers and I continued to volunteer and help when I could. Last summer, at the First AGM, I was elected to become a member of the Executive Committee and have therefore become more involved in all aspects of the campaign.

Reverse the decline in science funding – R&D to 0.8% campaign

Despite the welcomed injections of capital by the Government, that somewhat minimised the effects for specific areas, the effects of the cash-freeze and other cuts are already being felt. A recent study by CaSE (Campaign for Science and Engineering) clearly shows that, at the end of the spending review period (2014-15), there will still be a significant shortfall in science funding in real terms, estimated to be around .

This reduction is already having its effects in the research community and it must be reversed if the UK is to remain at the the forefront of scientific research.

Why a new campaign now?

As you might have heard, the Government is currently discussing a budget review for 2015-16, the results of which will be announced on June 26. There are many indicators of further cuts to announced so there is cause for concern. Despite reassurances from Vince Cable that science funding will be protected, we understand that the Treasury favours a continuation of the cash-freeze. This will continue the current decline and will send dangerous signals against long-term public investment in science.

Bringing in the big names

Our first question was: how can we raise awareness of this renewed threat to science funding and make sure there will be a public discussion on the issue? Getting renowned scientists in the UK to get involved was an obvious choice, and we spent a couple of weeks contacting them. At one point, I remember making the wild suggestion of cold emailing Prof Stephen Hawking, which other committee members thought was a good idea – I can’t tell you how surprised and delighted I when I got an email back, fully supporting the campaign!

So the campaign was launched with a letter in the Daily Telegraph signed by more than 50 prominent scientists in the UK, including Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees, Brian Cox, Paul Nurse and ICaMB’s own Jeff Errington.

We are asking the Government to show a clear long-term commitment to science in UK and set a target to increase public investment in R&D to 0.8% GDP – the G8 average – so we will regain our leading position and compete more effectively with the leading economies of the world.

Public spending in R&D as a percentage of GDP (via scienceogram.org)

Science funding in UK needs your help

Now, it’s your turn to help and support us.

We want to prepare a report, detailing the effects of the current cash-freeze is already having in the research community and alerting the Government for the dangers in pursuing the current policy of managed declined. For that, we need data. So please take our survey and tell us what you think.

We have prepared a public petition and ask you all to sign it. Importantly, we need to spread the word. As in 2010, we have used social media networks to tell people about the campaign. So please, sign it and tell everyone you know.

Also, you can write to your MP to get them involved in the discussion.

Science in UK needs you now. We only have a few weeks to get this important message across: Science is Vital for the UK.

 

A scientific note:

 

60 years ago today,  a ground breaking discovery was printed in Nature:

James Watson and Francis Crick published their proposed DNA structure, based on X-ray data collected by Rosalind Franklin, then working with Maurice Wilkins. There is hardly a need to explain the immense impact this paper had in science, medicine and our views of the world.

The fact that this was carried out in UK labs, with public funding, is one of the many examples of excellence in UK science.

 

We can not let this leading position be eroded, so what better way to celebrate it than join a campaign to help reverse science funding?

 

Science is Vital http://scienceisvital.org.uk/
R&D 0.8% campaign http://scienceisvital.org.uk/latest/
CaSE http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/

ICaMB Postgraduate Research Symposium – students’ views

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Once a year the final year PhD students in ICaMB have a one day symposium to present their data.  Here we ask some of these students to tell us how they found the occasion and discuss the projects they found particularly interesting.

 By Thomas Kinsman, Alexander Egan, Emma Button and Nichola Conlon

The ICaMB PGR Symposium was held on 25 March 2013. This annual symposium provides not only an excellent opportunity for final year PhD students to present their work to a mixed scientific audience of fellow students, research technicians, post docs and more senior researchers, but is also an excellent demonstration of the diversity of top quality research that is going on in ICaMB labs. The symposium and lunch were generously sponsored by GT Vision.

Session 1 – Reported by Thomas Kinsman (Lewis Lab)

The first session was centred on the study of DNA, yet talks ranged from the molecular biology of DNA polymerase processivity to the role of extracellular DNA in dental plaque biofilms. In addition to enabling me to gain a greater appreciation of the work that goes on in other labs within ICaMB, it was interesting that one of the speakers made a point of saying that preparing their talk had been very useful because it had made them realise they had enough results to write-up their PhD – I had not fully appreciated that this was another value of these talks!

Session 2 – Reported by Alex Egan (Vollmer Lab)

The second session of the symposium featured the work of students who look at various aspects of bacterial cell biology including; cell wall synthesis and cell division, bacterial cell motility, copper transport and storage and DNA replication. What immediately stands out from that list is the vast range of biological problems we work on here in ICaMB, and that’s just a small representation of the bacterial labs here. A positive impact of this vast range is that it creates an excellent centre for diverse knowledge, not just in gross terms, but in the myriad of different cellular and molecular techniques. With use of relatively simple yet elegant microscopy to study biological problems on cellular levels to the use of biochemical approaches to characterise the molecular basis of bacterial processes, it highlights that there’ll always be someone with experience who can provide advice and insight into almost any approach to biology. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of this, I believe it’s one of the great strengths of the symposium.

Session 3 – Reported by Emma Button (Veal Lab)

Session three was an exciting session in which talks ranged from the important interactions between the host and gut microbiota to mathematical equations used to refine a statistical modelling process that identifies subtle interactions involved telomere maintenance. Highlights of the session included a talk on the diverse roles of a peroxiredoxin (PRDX-6) in stress resistance and ageing, and a description of the importance of a DNA licensing protein (Cdt-1) and how it controlled DNA replication during embryo development in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis.

Session 4 – Reported by Nichola Conlon (Thwaites Lab)

The final session had talks that were all related to the gut, yet ranged from studies at a molecular level to in vivo human clinical trials. The first talk demonstrated how understanding the structure of mammalian amino acid transporter proteins in the plasma membrane is vital in understanding the pathology of gastrointestinal diseases and in improving drug specificity and targeting. An interesting insight followed into the mystery surrounding the mechanisms by which enteropathogenic E.coli (EPEC) disrupts the intestinal epithelium to cause diarrhoeal disease. The talk described the ways in which EPEC targets host cell proteins and pathways and highlighted the complexity in understanding such a common disease. Focus then shifted to the gut in its entirety with an intriguing description of an in vitro ‘model gut’, which is used to study the effects of various compounds on digestion. This model has proved effective in identifying alginate as a novel lipase inhibitor that can inhibit fat digestion similar to a current commercially available drug that is plagued by unwanted side effects. In vitro then moved to in vivo with the final talk which described a human clinical study in which ileostomy patients were used to assess the ability of alginate-enriched bread to inhibit fat digestion in vivo. Preliminary results revealed that, as observed in the model gut, alginate can also inhibit fat digestion in vivo when added as a supplement to food. The idea is that alginate could be incorporated into everyday foods, such as a loaf of bread, to try and combat obesity in a ‘health by stealth’ manner.

Personally, I found the symposium a complete success: everybody in attendance, students and staff alike, seemed to benefit in different ways from the experience. As a first year student in my lab said to me, they are looking forward to their turn in two years time.

You don’t always want what your mother gives you! – can we prevent mitochondrial disease?

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By Professor Robert Lightowlers

In 1988, scientists in the UK and US recognised that certain diseases were caused by mutations in mtDNA . Over the following 20 years, mtDNA defects have been shown to cause a range of debilitating diseases many affecting different parts of the body. However, the main disorders relate to your muscle tissue and the brain.

Human muscle fibres stained for mitochondrial function. As can be seen in B, some of the fibres show no activity. This is because these fibres have high levels of mutated mitochondrial DNA.

It is estimated that at least 1:10,000 people suffer from disorders associated with defects in Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) – that’s more than 6,000 people in the UK. Even so, it is only recently that the importance of mitochondrial diseases have hit the general media.

Many of you will have seen the debate on correcting mitochondrial diseases in the newspapers (for example, see the Guardian, Telegraph) and on television recently, but not be aware of the central role that Newcastle researchers have played in making this exciting, or to some, controversial, new therapy closer to becoming a reality.  Here, Bob Lightowlers ICAMB Director and senior member of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research (WTCMR) reflects on the role mitochondrial research in Newcastle has played in this process over the last 20 years and tells us some of the story behind the headlines.

What are Mitochondria?

Electron micrograph of a cell (coloured blue) revealing part of the mitochondrial structure (orange) within. The entire length of the mitochondrion is about 5 micrometres.

 

These crucial structures found in all the trillions of cells in our body have many essential functions. One very important role they play is to take our common foodstuffs such as fats and sugars and turn them into energy for our body’s to function.

A single human cell showing the nucleus (green), the mitochondrial network (red) and the mitochondrial DNA within the network (yellow)

 

 

 

One surprising element of these structures is that they contain their own genetic element, mitochondrial (mt) DNA. Much smaller than our chromosomes, mtDNA is essential for energy production.

 

 

 

OK, so this is important, but why have mitochondria and mtDNA begun to work their way into the common conversation of the nation?

Answer: Our mothers!

What has this got to do with our mothers ? Mitochondrial DNA is only transmitted to babies by their mothers. This is different to all our other DNA where copies are made and transmitted from both parents. Unfortunately, as you inherit your mothers mitochondria, diseases caused by mtDNA mutations are inadvertently transmitted from the mother.

How does this relate to Newcastle based Mitochondrial Research?

My colleague Doug Turnbull, a neurologist here in Newcastle (and Director of the WTCMR) and I have been intrigued by these mtDNA mutations since it first became clear that they could cause disease. Back in the early ‘90’s, we discussed whether some day it would be possible to try and prevent the transmission of the faulty mtDNA from the mothers to their children. Of course, at that stage, it was just wishful thinking. As the Mitochondrial Research Group (MRG) began to grow and mature in Newcastle, we often returned to one question:

What if the nucleus from the diseased egg could be transferred to a healthy egg whose nucleus had been removed, in essence leaving all the affected mtDNA behind ?

If it was indeed possible, this reconstituted egg could be fertilised and implanted back into the mother by standard techniques used routinely in fertility clinics throughout the world. We also would consider when would such a technique be most efficient: before or after fertilisation of the egg? On paper both options looked possible, but there are many complications.

Technical Concept: achieving the switch of nuclei without some of the faulty mtDNA being inadvertently taken along for the ride.

Towards the end of the 90’s, scientists working in Canada were able to show that the level of mtDNA inadvertently transferred when the nucleus was switched into a recipient cell lacking a nucleus, was low. This was a promising result, but it led to two central questions:

•   Could this be repeated with human cells?

•   Was this technique morally and ethically acceptable to everyone?

The ethical debate: Debate raged as to whether this technique would constitute genetic manipulation of humans, which of course would be illegal. Further, it was not possible to perform these types of reconstruction experiments in man, as using viable human fertilised cells for research was also, understandably, illegal.

Professor Mary Herbert working at the nearby Human Fertility Centre came up with an intriguing proposal. She explained that unfortunately, during the standard process of in vitro fertilisation, many eggs became incorrectly fertilised. These eggs are unable to grow correctly and have to be discarded. One way of determining whether it would be possible to swap mtDNA in humans, she suggested, was to use these incorrectly fertilised eggs. As this procedure would still require the manipulation of fertilised human eggs, a licence would need to be applied for from the Human Fertilisation and Embryological Authority (HFEA). Following lengthy and extensive debate, including members of the research team being called to the House of Commons, a licence was eventually awarded in 2005.  Five years later, with the essential help of colleagues in the Fertility Centre, Mary, Doug and a group of us from the MRG were able to show that such a swap could be performed without any or very low levels of the defective mtDNA being transferred. Importantly, there was also no defect detectable in the reconstituted cells . In 2011, this very promising result, along with many other important contributions made by the Newcastle MRG to understanding mitochondrial biology in health and disease was recognised by the Wellcome Trust who funded the establishment of a new Research Centre in Newcastle, the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research.

Getting acceptance of the technique

It was important to know whether the people of the UK agreed that such reconstitution technology was ethically acceptable. In August 2012, the government asked the Human Fertility and Embryological Authority (HFEA) to find out what the general public thought of the procedure .  The results were collated last month and the Human Fertility and Embryological Authority made a recommendation to Government. There was an overall support for the new technology with only 10% being fairly or strongly against the concept of mitochondrial gene replacement ) This is an endorsement of the method but there is still a long way to go before the technique can be performed in the clinic.

Its amazing to think how far this concept has come in 20 years. Perhaps in another 20 years we may be able to look back and celebrate how this dream has helped to provide a realistic method to help prevent the transmission of a debilitating disease for many couples.

 

Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research http://www.newcastle-mitochondria.com/
Human Fertility and Embryological Authority (HFEA) http://www.hfea.gov.uk/index.html
HFEA mitochondria puclib consultation 2012 http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6896.html