• Canada
• 2021 close
• 2021 close

Canada

AHRC: Natalie Ilsley: AH/L503903/1 This 3-month project will be realized at Ryerson University in Toronto, under the supervision of Professor Irene Gammel. The project aims to contribute to the study of trauma by using resilience as an analytical lens. It will offer theoretical and context-informed understandings of marginalized narratives by drawing on my expertise in the arts, humanities and the political sciences. The project will, therefore, generate fresh theoretical understandings of trauma and resilience thinking; facilitate analysis and enrich awareness of marginalized narratives as cultural and literary responses to global pandemics; and enhance the capacity for interdisciplinary research and collaborations in the UK and Canada. The expected outcomes are as follows: a co-written journal article, a virtual network for postgraduates and early career researchers, and a series of creative outputs.

EPSRC : Paul Smith : EP/N509498/1 Lipids are biological molecules that have hydrophobic tails and hydrophilic headgroups. Along with proteins, lipids constitute the complex fluid mixture of biological cell membranes. There are hundreds of types of lipids in cell membranes, each with a different combination of tail and headgroup, and many serving important biological functions. The lateral organization of lipids - the way in which different lipid types mix with one another - also serves important but poorly understood biological roles, including providing platforms for transmitting signals across the membrane. Physics-based computer simulations offer a unique opportunity to study biological structures at sub-nanometer resolution. We will use computer simulations to systematically study the effect of curvature on lipid mixing and the local physical properties of the membrane. This will both add to our general understanding of membrane biophysics as well as allow us to better model the behavior of complex biological structures like red blood cells.

BBSRC : Sian Thistlethwaite : BB/M011208/1 Many pharmaceutical drugs are synthesised by traditional organic routes, however this approach can be laborious and expensive with many difficult synthesis steps. Pharmaceutical synthesis is moving towards alternative synthetic routes such as biosynthesis in order to develop sustainable, cheaper routes of commercial production. This is crucial for antibacterial discovery, as alternative approaches are required to tackle the antibacterial resistance crisis. P450 BM3 is often utilised due to its rapid catalysis, diverse range of biotransformations and variant promiscuity yielding valuable existing and novel metabolites. We aim to address the problem of antibacterial resistance by screening variants of BM3 developed in the Munro group against antibacterial and bacterio-modulating pantothenamide analogs developed in the Auclair group. New analogs will be screened against several bacterial strains to assess their antibacterial/bacterio-modulating activity. Utilising biosynthesis to produce novel analogs of a class of compounds that will potentially resensitize the host immune system to infectious bacteria may yield several analogs of interest with a new mode of antibacterial action.