Biosciences Newsletter 2013

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Newsletter Bringing you the latest news from the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent 2012/2013 School of Biosciences Inside this edition 2 Ten reasons to choose Biosciences at Kent 3 Developing excellence through practical training 4 Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse 4 Award-winning teaching 5 Record turnout for Biosciences Outreach 5 Wain Medal Lecture 5 Stacey Symposium to include launch of Stacey Fund 6 Innovation awards 6 Major grants success 6 Upgrades to Stacey and Ingram buildings 6 Kent around the world Events and symposia Page 5 Celebrating success Page 7 Photography competition Page 8 Undergraduate news Page 3

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Biosciences Newsletter 2013

Transcript of Biosciences Newsletter 2013

Page 1: Biosciences Newsletter 2013

NewsletterBringing you the latest news from the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent 2012/2013

School of Biosciences

Inside this edition2 Ten reasons to choose

Biosciences at Kent

3 Developing excellence throughpractical training

4 Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse

4 Award-winning teaching

5 Record turnout for BiosciencesOutreach

5 Wain Medal Lecture

5 Stacey Symposium to includelaunch of Stacey Fund

6 Innovation awards

6 Major grants success

6 Upgrades to Stacey and Ingrambuildings

6 Kent around the world

Events and symposiaPage 5

Celebrating successPage 7

PhotographycompetitionPage 8

Undergraduate newsPage 3

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2 University of Kent School of Biosciences

Hello and welcome to theBiosciences Annual Newsletter.It has been prepared to giveapplicants an insight into theSchool of Biosciences,highlighting some of theachievements of the last yearwhile looking forward to anexciting 2013.

The School performed remarkably well in recruitingexcellent students during the last academic year,for both undergraduate and postgraduateprogrammes. Despite national declines in undergraduate student numbers, the School ofBiosciences admitted a record number of students, all with excellent entry grades. Applications forthe current UCAS cycle have increased again by 29% at the time of going to press. We feel this is areflection of the commitment of our dedicated staff, collectively offering a truly research-lededucation and an outstanding learning experience. The School of Biosciences has a great deal tooffer talented students, and the panel opposite highlights some of our strengths which make theSchool an exceptional place to study. By all available measures, our degrees have been recognisedas being among the very best in the UK.

If you visited the School of Biosciences during one of our UCAS visit days you will have noticed theon-going work to upgrade the interior to the building, which will provide an enhanced environment forstudents and staff alike. We are a School that is growing strongly; we have taken on 6 new membersof academic staff in the last 2 years and are looking forward to the arrival of a further 4 beforeAugust 2013. These new appointments bring new opportunities and new expertise, and they arealready adding to our portfolio of modules, bringing more flexibility and choice to our degreeprogrammes. We warmly welcome Dr Mark Wass, an expert in bioinformatics, who has joined usmost recently.

This is a very exciting time for us. We seek to maintain our national position as a School whichcouples international research excellence with a recognised commitment to training the nextgeneration of scientists.

Dr Richard WilliamsonUndergraduate Admissions Officer

Welcome

Ten reasons to chooseBiosciences at KentTen reasons why you might consider studyingfor a degree in the School of Biosciences:

Student satisfactionThe School of Biosciences has achievedexcellent results for student satisfaction inthe National Student Surveys.

Teaching excellenceBiosciences scored the maximum possiblemark in the last teaching quality assessment(an external review of our courses by theHigher Education Quality Assurance Agency).

Modern facilitiesOur refurbished teaching laboratories and arecent investment in high-specificationlaboratory equipment have underpinnedadvances in our extensive practical training.

Industrial linksAbout 10% of our students spend a year outworking in industry includingGlaxoSmithKline, Lonza, the Genome Centrein Cambridge and Roche in Switzerland.

Summer Research StudentshipsThe School of Biosciences has establishedthe Stacey Fund to support 8-week summerstudentships, allowing undergraduate studentsto gain valuable research experience.

Transferable skillsAs part of your degree you will learn aboutscience communication, problem solving,working in groups, time management and IT,all of which promote graduate employability.

Final Year ProjectsIn the final year students carry out an 8-week research project which allows them tocontribute directly to the work of the school.Our innovative research projects havegained national recognition.

Academic SupportWe are a comparatively small school thattakes the welfare of its students seriously.Each undergraduate is assigned anacademic adviser (a member of academicstaff) who will monitor their progressthrough the course.

Attractive Campus and LocationThe University is situated on a 300 acrehillside campus overlooking the historic cityof Canterbury.

Good Job ProspectsOur students are in high demand aftergraduation. The School of Biosciences wasranked 9th in 2012 and 12th in 2013 forgraduate employment in the GuardianUniversity Guide.

Biosciences 2012photographycompetitionA total of 34 images weresubmitted to the Biosciences2012 photography competitionthemed “Bioscience throughmy lens”. See back page formore examples.

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

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University of Kent School of Biosciences 3

One of the unique challenges of a sciencedegree is the balancing of academic contentwith practical training. Our practical classesallow students to develop their scientificknowledge and understand their practicalsignificance. They also provide hands-onexperience with cutting-edge scientificequipment and key techniques used in thebiological sciences. However, in a subject thatmoves as quickly as the biological sciences,where rapid advances mean that techniques areconstantly reinvented, universities need toensure that they are delivering a training that is inkeeping with the demands of employers.

The School of Biosciences has always respondedto such challenges and reinvents its curriculumconstantly. Our students recognise this,consistently ranking us highly for overall studentsatisfaction in the National Student Survey. It isalso gratifying, but perhaps no surprise given ourstrong focus on practical skills training, that Kentranks very well for Graduate Employability: 9th in2012 and 12th in 2013 (out of almost 100institutions) according to the Guardian GoodUniversity Guide. Nevertheless, the high esteem inwhich we are held by students, graduates andemployers needs to be maintained.

Dr Kay Foster, our outstanding Director ofLearning and Teaching, saw an opportunity toupdate our practical skills training in the currentacademic year. We have always had a strongfocus on practical skills in all of our degreeprogrammes, but this year Dr Foster sought tointegrate a range of skills within an extendedproject, rather than separate practical classes.She developed an Autumn term extended projectin the second year in which students wouldexpress, purify and characterise a protein. Indoing so, this would give students a trueexperience of research culture, where they solvetheir own problems and make their own decisionson experiments. They would also benefit from theworld-leading expertise in protein science at theUniversity of Kent so that their experiments wouldbe based on the most modern, cutting edgetechnology available to science.

The first task was to talk to our research staff andidentify a range of proteins that students couldwork with. “I put out a request to research staff inthe School of Biosciences. The range of proteinsI was offered was incredible, ranging fromenzymes involved in alcohol metabolism toantibody-directed treatments for colorectalcancer. I was then able to work with expert staff

within our research laboratories to developsuitable procedures that would allow students toproduce and purify the proteins and also toestablish their biological functions.”

“Students have been able to gain experience ofresearch at a very early stage of their universitycareers”, Dr Foster explained. “But in doing so,they have also gained a range of practical skillsthat are widely used in academic and industrialresearch environments. So as well as thetransferable research skills that employers value,they are also able to add a range of cutting edgetechnical skills to their CVs”. In doing so,students have also recognised that the work hasprepared them very effectively for their final yearof study in which they undertake an extendedresearch project.

Sometimes the best element of working in auniversity is that academic staff can learn asmuch as the students. “That is how it should be”,said Dr Foster. “I have gained a tremendousamount from the reinvention of our second yearpractical training. We can always learn moreabout a subject. This is precisely what we expectof our students. We expect it of ourselves too!”

Developing excellence through practical training

Undergraduate news

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Undergraduate news

Key factsMost recent measures of qualityand esteem for the School ofBiosciences:

Teaching Quality Assessment: 24/24

National Student Survey: 95% studentsatisfaction

Graduate employability: 12th out of 97 inGuardian University Guide

Did you know?UCAS applications to the School of Bioscienceshave increased year-on-year since 2005, and thisyear alone has seen an increase in applicationsof 29% compared to last year. This is a strongendorsement of the School’s strong performancein national league tables, the recognised qualityof our degree programmes and our excellentrecord of graduate employability.

New modules for 2013We are adding new modules in Cancer Biology,Bioinformatics, Protein Science and Microbiologyto our degree programmes in the coming year.With new staff arriving shortly, we are buildingtheir world-leading research experience into newmodules in the second and final year of ourdegree programmes. This will enhance thechoice available to our students as they progressthrough our degree programmes.

Award-winningteachingThe recent Kent Union Teaching Awardssaw three staff making the shortlist for allthree categories of award: Best Teacher(Dr Peter Klappa), Fantastic Feedback(Dr Peter Nicholls) and postgraduates whoTeach (Alex Moores, a PhD student whowas recognised for her work in assistingstudents with practical work). A further16 members of staff were recognised bystudents for the quality of their teaching,each receiving a prestigious mug! Thisrecognition is in addition to the NationalTeaching Fellowship awarded to Dr DanLloyd by the Higher Education Academythat selects the best 50 university teachersannually from nominations across the UK.Dr Lloyd remains one of only 25 NationalTeaching Fellows in the UK within theBiological Sciences, and one of only 5across the University of Kent.

Nobel Laureate Sir Paul NurseOn 10 July 2012, Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse was given a warmwelcome by students and staff when he delivered our 20th AnnualPostgraduate Symposium lecture. Sir Paul is the current Presidentof the Royal Society, London, and was awarded the Nobel Prize forPhysiology or Medicine in 2001 for his genetics research onprotein molecules and their impact on cells. He is currentlyDirector and Chief Executive of the Francis Crick Institute.

Earlier in the day, Sir Paul was made an Honorary Graduate of theUniversity at the morning Congregation ceremony in CanterburyCathedral.

Fresh from the ceremony, Sir Paul, presented awards to ourundergraduate students lucky enough to have been nominatedfor prizes in recognition of their hard work, academic excellenceand contribution to the school.

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Events and symposia

September saw the first MBP2 day of the 2012/13academic year, with record numbers of studentsqueuing to take part in this school-led researchproject. MBP2 (the Myelin Basic Protein Project)was conceived in 2008 by Dr David Colthurst,biology teacher at the Simon Langton GrammarSchool for Boys and a former postgraduatestudent in the School of Biosciences.

MBP2 is one example among the School ofBiosciences’ outreach portfolio that hasdemonstrable impact. Since conception of theproject, the numbers of students studying biologyat the Simon Langton has more than doubled.

The project has also raised awareness ofmultiple sclerosis, with increasing numbers ofstudents acting as occasional volunteerhelpers or fund-raisers for the MS SocietyCentre neighbouring the school. MBP2 has nowgone on to inspire similar projects bySchool/University partnerships acrossEngland, under the Wellcome Trust funded“Authentic Biology” programme. The School ofBiosciences also recently applied for aGuardian Higher Education award based ontheir involvement in this pioneering project.

Record turnout for Biosciences Outreach

Stacey Symposium2013 to include launchof Stacey FundTo commemorate the late Professor KenStacey, the School of Biosciences hasinitiated the ‘Stacey Symposium’. This is anannual event, this year the 3rd StaceySymposium will be held on 8th April 2013.At the Symposium we invite back formerstudents and staff to give talks on a chosentheme, the theme for the 3rd Symposiumwill be A career beyond the laboratory. Theaim is to illustrate the range of careers ouralumni have followed and we hope willinspire current students to think broadlyabout their career opportunities once theyleave Canterbury. We also invite a widerange of alumni to the event.

In addition to the formal proceedings of theday, we will also be using the Symposium tolaunch the Stacey Fund. This fund –supported by donations from KentBiosciences� alumni – will provide currentstudents with the opportunity to broadentheir horizons during their undergraduate orpostgraduate studies through workexperience during the vacations.

Former members of the School, studentsor staff are invited to attend

Wain Medal Lecture 2012Congratulations to Dr Edward Tate from theDepartment of Chemistry, Imperial CollegeLondon and winner of the 2012 Wain Medal.The Medal presentation was preceded by alecture entitled “Using chemistry to targetprotein modification in disease” which tookplace in Woolf Lecture Theatre on theCanterbury Campus. The large audiencecomprising the Wain family, students, staff,local schoolchildren and public memberswere treated to an excellent lecturedescribing Dr Tate’s groundbreakingresearch.

The Wain Medal isawarded annuallyin memory ofProfessor LouisWain to a youngscientist workingat the interface ofchemistry andbiology.

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Professor Mark Smales, £324,213 BBSRC,Investigation and manipulation of mTOR cellularsignalling to generate novel CHO host cells withhigh growth and productivity characteristics

Dr Wei-Feng Xue, £428,736 BBSRC, Quantitativeinvestigations into the molecular mechanisms ofamyloid fibril fragmentation

Professor Martin Warren, £481,242 awarded bythe BBSRC: Development of cobalaminsurrogates as probes and carriers throughsynthetic and chemical biology approaches

Professor Darren Griffin, £535,556 awarded byBBSRC: “Genome assembly chromosomalorganization and comparative genomics ofmultiple bird species: beyond “catalogues ofgenes”

In addition, many other awards were madebringing the total of funding for the year inexcess of £2 million.

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Research

Both of the buildings that house Biosciences arein the process of a major upgrade to create abetter working environment for staff andstudents. It is estimated that the total spent willbe around £2 million. The work includes repairsto services and fire-stopping work and has nowprogressed to all corridors being stripped andrefurbished, with walls, floors, ceilings, cupboarddoors, fire-doors undergoing a completemakeover. The balustrades of the mainstaircases have been replaced with a metal andglass design and we look forward to theextensive remodelling and refurbishment ofentrances and their foyers. Completion timeis expected to be March 2013.

Upgrades to the Stacey and Ingram BuildingsInnovation Awards2012

Innovation, creativity and enterprise wererecognised at the University of Kent’sannual Innovation Awards in October 2012.Members of Kent’s business communityand representatives of other partnerorganisations were welcomed by UniversityVice-Chancellor Professor Dame JuliaGoodfellow to the event, which was heldat the Canterbury Innovation Centre.

Professor Darren Griffin won both theimpact and collaboration awards for theimpact of his work in a number of areas ofgenetics research and his collaboration withThe London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecologyand Genetics Centre and JSR Genetics Ltd.

In addition, Professor Mark Smales washighly commended for the collaboration withLonza Biologics on the development ofPredictive Tools for the Isolation of Highlyproductive Recombinant Cell Lines.

Major grants awarded in 2012Leverhulme FellowshipAwardProfessor Mick Tuite was awarded a one yearLeverhulme Trust Research Fellowship,beginning September 2012. This will allow Mickto return to the laboratory to carry out a seriesexperiments as part of a project entitled “Thenatural history of yeast prions”. The aim of theproject is to see if yeast prions also exist in ‘wild’strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and otherSaccharomyces species and will involveresearch at Kent plus research visits to the USAand Portugal.

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Celebrating success

The School of Biosciences has always been veryproud of its international reputation. We haveundergraduate students, postgraduate students,short term visitors and and staff from all cornersof the globe, bringing a cosmopolitanatmosphere to the learning environment thatbenefits us all.

Recent developments have increasedopportunities available to our students. A stronglink with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia haspermitted Study Abroad opportunities in the FarEast, while four students have now undertakenexciting Sandwich Year placements at theNational Centre for Genetic Engineering andBiotechnology (BIOTEC) in Thailand. Recentdevelopments in North America have led to anumber of vibrant student exchanges withinstitutions in California, Virginia andMassachusetts. We are in the process ofdeveloping further partnerships in the USA,

Hong Kong and Istanbul, adding further choiceand flexibility to our degree programmes.

The School of Biosciences has celebrated a newinternational milestone: the first PhD studentsupervised by a Kent member of staff, while atan overseas institution, graduated in November2012. Dr Abdullah Al Mutery graduated with aPhD in Genetics after successfully completinga thesis on the genome of the Gyr falcon, thenational emblem of the United Arab Emirates.Dr Al Mutery was supervised by ProfessorDarren Griffin in collaboration with the CentralVeterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) in Dubai,where most of the lab work was undertaken.

Biosciences will be continuing to expand itsportfolio, thus providing external students frommany other countries the opportunity to studyand graduate at PhD level.

Dr Mark Wass joined theSchool of Biosciences inOctober 2012. He obtainedhis first degree in NaturalSciences at CambridgeUniversity in 2000 followedby a Masters in Computingat Imperial College London.After a few years working inIndustry as an IT consultant

Mark studied for a PhD with Prof Mike Sternbergat Imperial (2004-2008) and continued onto apost-doctoral position in the group. In 2011 Markwas awarded a FEBS Long Term Fellowship towork in the group of Alfonso Valencia at the

CNIO (Spanish National Cancer ResearchCentre, Madrid, Spain).

Mark’s research interests are in StructuralBioinformatics, particularly the analysis andprediction of protein function, structure andinteractions. He is also interested in using suchapproaches to analyse genetic variation andidentify the functional effects that are associatedwith disease.

Biosciences will be expecting 4 more membersof academic staff to join the School over thesummer, thus bringing a range of new expertisein exciting areas of the biosciences.

Welcome new colleaguesNew Master’s programmeThe MSc in Drug Design will run for thefirst time in September 2013. Theprogramme has been designed byProfessor David Brown, formerly Director ofStructural Biology at Pfizer, bringing a strongindustrial focus and insight into the drugdiscovery process. The MSc in Drug Designis the newest in our excellent suite ofpostgraduate taught programmes in CancerBiology, Reproductive Medicine,Biotechnology and Bioengineering, andScience, Communication and Society.

Kent around the world

Doctor DoctorCongratulations to the following studentsfor successfully negotiating their vivas andbeing 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

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Art for science’s sake

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The Biosciences 2012 photography competitionthemed “Bioscience through my lens” saw imagesof outstanding quality in the entries. Here are someexamples, including the winners whose imagesconveyed the many facets of Biosciences.

From upper left to lower right are: Evelyne Deery,“Pigments of life”; Wesley Naeimi, “D.I.Y lasermicroscopy”; Tobias von der Haar, “Colours ofBiology”, Tarun Singh, “Lab”, Dimitrios Ladakis,“The Crystal Maze”, Samantha Lynn, “Reflectivecylinder”; Kevin Howland, “The BiomolecularScience Facility in ‘model’ form”; and SusanneSchroeder, “When things go wrong”.

Biosciences 2012 photography competition

School of Biosciences

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Art meets science As part of a project that uses art to explorescientific findings and processes, theSchool of Biosciences hosted a workshopin which artists from across the UK spenta day undertaking scientific experimentsusing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR),a cornerstone of genetic technology. Sixartists, coupled with six scientists, led to astimulating day of mutual discovery andsharing of ideas.

The remarkably simple process of PCRis to be represented by these artists in agallery exhibition to be held in the SidneyCooper Gallery in November 2012, andstudents from the School of Bioscienceswill be assisting with planning, support andrunning the exhibition. Communicatingscience has been a very important part ofthe scientific culture within the school andwe are looking forward to exploring howart can express scientific ideas andpractices to the general public in thisexciting exhibition.