- 8th Nov 11 - University research lights up the sky on 11/12th November 2011
The Swann Building, on the Kings Buildings campus, will be the backdrop of a unique building projection this week and the best views will be from Liberton.
The Swann Building is the home of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, a centre of world renowned research into cell biology.
The projection will run 11th and 12th November, beginning at sunset and carrying on until 11.30pm. It will light up the South Edinburgh horizon with futuristic, stunning images created in the research labs. Coming the weekend after bonfire night, it is hoped this projection will create it own fireworks.
The 'Seeing Cells' projection is to mark the opening of the Centre’s outreach project 'Life Through a Lens':
a project to engage school children, young families and the general public in the process of scientific discovery, understanding cells and how scientists today are building on the work of generations of scientists that came before them.
'Life Through a Lens' will be presented at the Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh 12-24th November. It is open to the public at the weekends 1-4pm, 12th/13th/18th/19th November. Visitors will have the chance to use a microscope, meet a scientist and discuss the work of current and historical scientists.
On weekdays, schools from around Scotland will be visiting for a drama/workshop production. There will be lots of hands-on activites, using microscopes, plenty for children to do and the opportunity to meet and talk to our scientists.
- 11th Aug 11 - SBS Successes in Bioquarter Innovation Competition
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Thierry Le Behan and Chris French were recently announced as runners-up in the Bioquarter innovation competition. This was launched to discover the best medical business concepts to be created from scientific research in the university. Thierry's entry "AccuoPept" was placed fourth, and Chris's entry "Acid Test" was fifth. They were each awarded £5,000 to help them develop their plans.
For details, please visit the University's Staff News at:
SBS Successes in Bioquarter Innovation Competition
- 6th Jun 11 - Edinburgh Sustainability Awards Winners
The Public Engagement Team on the Darwin 3rd floor has won two prizes in the Edinburgh Sustainability Awards.
The group were awarded the bronze standard for the Darwin Building in recognition of their efforts in incorporating social responsibility and sustainability into their work. The bronze criteria included actions on healthy work environments, sustainable travel, equality and diversity, and energy saving. We hope that next year all of Darwin will work together to achieve a silver standard.
Edinburgh Sustainability Awards ceremony.
The team also won first prize in the Energy Saving on Campus Ideas Competition for their 'Sensor Smart' project. The project proposed installing sensor activated lighting in the toilets and corridors of the Darwin and Swann buildings in order to reduce lighting usage and save energy and carbon.
The awards were presented at a ceremony in the Teviot Debating Hall on 26 May 2011. This is the first year that the Edinburgh Sustainability Awards have run. The awards are a three year partnership between EUSA and NUS.
The Public Engagement Group led by Professor Mary Bownes includes the Edinburgh Beltane, the Scottish Initiative for Biotechnology Education projects and some of those involved in building the sustainability and social responsibility website.
For more information, contact mary.bownes@ed.ac.uk
- 2nd Dec 10 - Gene Jury school pupil conference (re-scheduled)
On Tuesday 29th March 2011, the Gene Jury public engagement project, will hold its first ever conference, in the Michael Swann Building, hosting over 200 pupils from 10 secondary schools across Edinburgh, Midlothian, East Lothian and Perth. The pupils will be treated to a day of interactive lectures, tutorials and discussions including guest speakers Dr. Chris Armitt from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and Professor Helen Sang from the Roslin Institute. There will also be presentations and videos prepared for the occasion by undergraduate students, a "question-time" session with a panel of experts and small group hands on tutorials culminating in one school winning the Gene Jury challenge trophy. All main lecture theatre events will be recorded for post-event viewing and will also be live-streamed from this page http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/projects/GeneJury/livestream.html.
For further information about the conference or the Gene Jury project please consult the webpage given above or contact Dr Heather McQueen (h.mcqueen@ed.ac.uk) or Sarah Keer-Keer (skkeer@staffmail.ed.ac.uk).
- 3rd Sep 10 - Scientists unwrap DNA packaging to gain insight into cells
Scientists have built a clearer picture of how lengthy strands of DNA are concertinaed when our cells grow and divide, in a discovery that could help explain how cell renewal can go wrong.
Scientists have identified thousands of proteins that play a key role in compacting DNA – a crucial process by which DNA is shortened up to 10,000 times to fit inside cells as they split into two.
Researchers hope the findings could shed light on what happens when this packaging process fails and cells divide abnormally – which can lead to cancer or cause developing embryos to miscarry.
Scientists developed a new technology for their research by combining existing techniques in biology, genetics and maths and the large-scale study of proteins. They were able to define some 4,000 proteins involved in the division of cells. The proteins protect the fragile genetic material and help it fold into the correct shape before it splits into two new cells. The new methods can identify many of those proteins that are most important to the process.
University of Edinburgh scientists, who carried out the study, hope the discovery will help them better understand how these proteins influence the process of cell division.
The research was directed by Professors Juri Rappsilber and William Earnshaw, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, and carried out in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Japanese National Institute of Genetics in Mishima, Japan. It was supported by the Wellcome Trust and published in the journal Cell.
Until now, our understanding of the very complex way in which DNA moves during cell division was patchy; this latest development allows us, for the first time, to fully identify all the proteins that take part in the process, and how they interact with one another. Future work is needed to reveal more of the intricacies of this process and how to prevent it from going wrong.
Professor William Earnshaw
School of Biological Sciences
Images are taken from the original publication: The Protein Composition of Mitotic Chromosomes Determined Using Multiclassifier Combinatorial Proteomics authored by S. Ohta, J-C. Bukowski-Wills, L. Sanchez-Pulido, F. de L. Alves, L. Wood, Z.A. Chen, M. Platani, L. Fischer, D.F. Hudson, C.P. Ponting, T. Fukagawa, W.C. Earnshaw and J. Rappsilber. Cell 142(5), 810-821 (2010)
For more information please contact:
Professor William Earnshaw, School of Biological Sciences, tel 0131 650 7101; email Bill.Earnshaw@ed.ac.uk
Professor Juri Rappsilber, tel 0131 651 7056; email Juri.Rappsilber@ed.ac.uk
Catriona Kelly, Press and PR Office, tel 0131 651 4401; email Catriona.Kelly@ed.ac.uk
- 30th Jun 10 - Insight into cells could lead to new approach to medicines
A surprising discovery about the complex make-up of our cells could lead to the development of new types of medicines, a study suggests.
Scientists studying interactions between cell proteins – which enable the cells in our bodies to function – have shown that proteins communicate not by a series of simple one-to-one communications, but by a complex network of chemical messages.
The findings suggest that medicines would be more effective if they were designed differently. Drugs could have a greater effect on cell function by targeting groups of proteins working together, rather than individual proteins.
Results were obtained by studying yeast, which has many corresponding proteins in human cells. Researchers, including scientists from the University of Edinburgh, used advanced technology to identify hundreds of different proteins, and then used statistical analysis to identify the more important links between them, mapping almost 2000 connections in all.
Scientists expected to find simple links between individual proteins but were surprised to find that proteins were inter-connected in a complex web.
Our studies have revealed an intricate network of proteins within cells that is much more complex than we previously thought. This suggests that drugs should be more complex to treat illnesses
Dr Victor Neduva
School of Biological Sciences
Professor Mike Tyers, who led the study, said: "Medicines could work better if they targeted networks of proteins rather than sole proteins associated with particular illnesses."
The research, published in Science, carried out in collaboration with Mount Sinai Hospital, Ontario and the Universities of Michigan and Toronto, was supported by the Royal Society and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance.
For more information please contact:
Dr Victor Neduva, School of Biological Sciences, tel 0131 651 7085; email V.Neduva@ed.ac.uk
Professor Mike Tyers, School of Biological Sciences, tel 0131 651 9072; email M.Tyers@ed.ac.uk
Catriona Kelly, Press and PR Office, tel 0131 651 4401; email Catriona Kelly@ed.ac.uk
The figure shows a kinase-kinase interaction network.
- 12th Apr 10 - Adrian Bird awarded Honorary Degree
Adrian Bird has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Sussex.
The award will be conferred at the graduation ceremony in July 2010.
- 26th Feb 10 - Study offers new clues in bid to beat girls' autism condition
Fresh insight into the cause of an autism spectrum disorder could aid the search for treatments for the condition, which affects more than 1,000 girls in the UK.
Scientists investigating Rett syndrome, which can leave girls unable to walk or talk properly, believe the biological mechanism behind the disorder may be simpler than was previously thought.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that a faulty protein which causes the condition interacts with all the genes in brain cells, contradicting previous thinking that the protein affected only a handful of genes.
The discovery suggests that impact of the faulty gene, known as MeCP2, may be similar in different types of brain cells.
Symptoms of Rett syndrome, which affects mainly girls, develop at around one year of age. They include poor communication skills and reduced mobility. Those affected may also suffer seizures, digestive and breathing problems and often need constant care.
The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was published in the journal Molecular Cell.
Professor Adrian Bird, who led the study, said: “This debilitating disorder is caused by a protein that is much more abundant in brain cells than we had realised and can therefore interact with the entire human genome, rather than with a few selected genes.
“It may be that, in Rett patients, many brain cells share a generic defect – which would mean this disease is less complicated than we feared. More work is needed to investigate this possibility.”
The image shows the results of high-throughput DNA sequencing and confirms genome-wide MeCP2 binding. Figure 4 from Skene et al., Molecular Cell, 37(4), 457-468 (2010).
For more information please contact:
Prof Adrian Bird, School of Biological Sciences, tel 0131 650 5670; email A.Bird@ed.ac.uk
Catriona Kelly, Press and PR Office, tel 0131 651 4401; email Catriona.Kelly@ed.ac.uk
- 25th Sep 09 - Poonam Malik receives grant to study Nuclear cytoplasmic transport in mammalian cells
Poonam Malik has recently received a grant from the Royal Society to study how the nucleo-cytoplasmic import pathway is regulated and managed in eukaryotic cells using herpesviruses as model organism. The involvement of herpesviruses in a range of prominent medical and veterinary diseases makes them one of the most important virus families. Herpesviruses are well adapted to their hosts and productive infections may be inapparent but with a degree of immune suppression eg following drug therapy for cancer or organ transplantation, or AIDS, infections can be life threatening. Several herpesviruses are implicated in different types of cancer. The separation of transcription in the nucleus and translation in the cytoplasm requires nucleocytoplasmic exchange of proteins and RNAs in the cells. Most proteins move through the nuclear pores in an energy-dependent process mediated by nucleocytoplasmic shuttling receptors of the importin-ß (karyopherin) family that are translocated via interaction with nucleoporins, proteins of the nuclear pore complex. Investigation would be carried out to elucidate the trafficking pathways used in infected cells.
- 25th Jun 09 - Cell division short-cut may aid quest to treat genetic disorders
- Scientists have discovered a way to redesign the process by which cells divide, in a step that could one day help in the treatment of genetic disorders.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have designed a short-cut for the process by which a cell's chromosomes which carry DNA are split when a cell divides into two. This basic biological process is essential to allow cells to grow and maintain tissues.
The study focused on part of a chromosome, known as the centromere, which is responsible for division of the chromosome. Scientists were able to create the short-cut by rerouting a key step in the pathway bypassing several genes which would normally be involved.
Bypassing these genes enables scientists to simplify the assembly of the centromere, making the process more efficient.
The development was made possible using design techniques relevant to the emerging field of synthetic biology which uses engineering methods to redesign biological systems with new or improved functions. Scientists hope their development which was carried out using yeast as a model organism will inform related work on human chromosomes, providing tools to tackle various genetic diseases in the future.
The study, supported by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council, was published in the journal Science.
Professor Robin Allshire of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, who took part in the study, said: "Our findings should help research aimed at developing human artificial chromosomes as vehicles for use in gene therapy. This is an example of the potential of the emerging field of synthetic biology a new approach to understanding and solving problems in biological processes."
For more information please contact:
Catriona Kelly
Press and PR Office
tel 0131 651 4401: email Catriona.Kelly@ed.ac.uk
- 9th Apr 09 - Discovery opens door to drugs derived from protein
- Drugs which are derived from protein such as insulin and antibody therapies could be produced more efficiently following a fresh discovery about DNA, research suggests.
Scientists have found a way to predict how individual genes in our DNA which control the production of proteins that make up our bodies determine how much of a protein is made.
The development by researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Pennsylvania together with Harvard University could allow scientists to manipulate genes to produce large quantities of useful proteins for pharmaceutical use. Therapeutic proteins are increasingly prescribed to treat a range of illnesses.
Researchers created 154 varieties of a gene that produces a green fluorescent protein, making the protein easy to identify. They introduced the variants into a bacteria cell, wherein the protein was produced. It was found that the variations in the gene made no difference to the type of protein produced by it, but did affect the quantity of protein produced.
The scientists found that for those genes that produced only small amounts of protein, a section of the molecule involved in the process was tightly coiled, literally blocking production of the protein. Scientists believe the corresponding region of DNA could be manipulated to influence the output of protein as required.
The researchers also found that some variations of the gene did not affect the amount of protein produced, but caused harm to the bacteria. This has significant implications for our understanding of how genetic variations can cause damage to cells.
The study, part-funded by the Wellcome Trust and the BBSRC, was published in the journal Science.
Dr Grzegorz Kudla, who took part in the study, said: "The human genome contains more than 20,000 genes, which carry the code for all the proteins present in our bodies. Some of these proteins are needed in bulk, while for others a tiny amount is sufficient. We have discovered another layer in the genetic code, by which DNA controls not only the type of proteins produced, but their amount."
For more information please contact:
Catriona Kelly, Press and PR Office,
Tel: 0131 651 4401;
Email: Catriona.Kelly@ed.ac.uk
- 19th Jan 09 - Study sheds light on why we have fewer genes than expected
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The human body is far more complicated than our relatively small number of genes suggests – now scientists have shed more light on why this might be the case.
Studies suggest that one reason why humans are such complex beings – despite having a similar number of genes to a fruit fly – could be down to molecules called RNA, which normally interact with genes to produce the proteins that make up our bodies.
The team at the University of Edinburgh suggests that the way a certain type of RNA interacts with genes allows regulation of how often and how much protein is created, so that protein production is more complex than in simpler organisms.
Normally, information held in genes is copied into RNA, which is then used to construct the proteins that make up our bodies. However, the Edinburgh study has shown that not all RNA is involved in this process and some RNA molecules can instead change the amount of protein that these genes produce.
The Edinburgh team studied yeast and found that a particular type of yeast RNA appears to have evolved to fine-tune a set of genes, adding a layer of complexity that better allows the yeast to adapt to a changing environment. As yeast is biologically similar to plants and animals, including humans, it is likely that we have RNA that carries out a similar function.
Professor David Tollervey, of the School of Biological Sciences, who carried out the research, said: “Humans have around 24,000 genes, fewer than many plants and not many more than simple worms. But, of course, we are actually much more complex than this comparison suggests. Our findings suggest that RNA plays a role in adding layers of complexity to the regulation of expression of our genes.”
The study, carried out with UCLA, was published in the journal Molecular Cell.
