̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Medimmune

"A very Cambridge story"

lw355 — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 11:00:48 +0000

We spoke with Cambridge’s most recent Nobel Laureate about decades of research, spin-outs, pharma giants and the booming life sciences cluster in Greater Cambridge.

Cambridge Science Festival returns for milestone 25th year

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 15:48:27 +0000

Celebrating its 25th year, the Festival runs for two weeks from 11-24 March and explores the theme of ‘discoveries’. An impressive line-up of acclaimed scientists includes microscopist Professor Dame Pratibha Gai, Astronomer Royal Professor Lord Martin Rees, 2018 Nobel prize winner Sir Gregory Winter, geneticist Dr Giles Yeo, statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter, engineer Dr Hugh Hunt, marine biologist and author Helen Scales, THIS Institute Director Professor Mary Dixon-Woods, futurist Mark Stevenson, and science presenter Steve Mould.

̽��ֱ��full programme is teeming with events ranging from debates, talks, exhibitions, workshops and interactive activities to films, comedy and performances, held in lecture theatres, museums, cafes and galleries around Cambridge. There are events for all ages and most are free.
With so many events on offer, audiences will be spoilt for choice. Some of the biggest events in week one include:

Is technology making us miserable? (11 March). Virtually every interaction we have is mediated through technology. Despite being ‘always-on’, are we any better off? Are we better connected? Or is technology making us miserable?
Putting radioactivity in perspective (12 March). Following a renewal of electricity generated by nuclear power, Professors Ian Farnan and Gerry Thomas, Imperial College London, discuss radioactivity in the natural world and the outcomes of decades of study on the health effects of radiation. Could these research outcomes reset attitudes towards radiation and the risks?
̽��ֱ��universe of black holes (13 March). Christopher Reynolds, Plumian Professor of Astronomy, describes how future research into black holes may yet again change our view of reality.
̽��ֱ��long-term perspective of climate change (14 March). Professors Ulf Büntgen, Mike Hulme, Christine Lane, Hans W Linderholm, Clive Oppenheimer, Baskar Vira, and Paul J Krusic discuss how we investigate past climate and the challenges we face in applying this to the policy-making process.
Catalytic activation of renewable resources to make polymers and fuels (15 March). Professor Charlotte Williams, ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, discusses the development of catalysts able to transform carbon dioxide into methanol, a process which may deliver more sustainable liquid transport fuels in the future.
Does the mother ever reject the fetus? (15 March). Professor Ashley Moffett discusses fetal rejection and explores new discoveries that show that there are multiple mechanisms to ensure there is a peaceful environment in the uterus, where the placenta is allowed to grow and develop to support the fetus.

Top picks for the second week include:

Cambridge gravity lecture: Sir Gregory Winter (18 March). Sir Gregory is a molecular biologist and 2018 Nobel Laureate best known for his work on developing technologies to make therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. His research has led to antibody therapies for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Discoveries leading to new treatments for dementia (18 March). Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Associate Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute, Giovanna Mallucci discusses how new research leading to insights into dementia and degenerative brain diseases may lead to new treatments.
Improving quality and safety in healthcare (19 March). THIS Institute Director Professor Mary Dixon-Woods looks at the challenges to improving quality and safety in healthcare and considers why it’s so hard to answer the question: Does quality improvement actually improve quality? With Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor in Chief of ̽��ֱ��BMJ.
Immunology: the future of medicine? (19 March) Professor Clare Bryant and a panel of Cambridge immunologists discuss how understanding disease triggers may enable entirely new approaches to treating and potentially preventing disease.
Polar ocean: the dead end of plastic debris (19 March). An estimated 80% of all the litter in our oceans is plastic, and a significant concentration of plastics debris is found in both polar oceans. ̽��ֱ��impact of this debris on the sensitive polar ecosystem could be profound. Pelagic marine ecologist Dr Clara Manno, British Antarctic Survey, explores the current research and existing situation in the polar regions.
Reluctant futurist (19 March). Old models for healthcare, education, food production, energy supply and government are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. Futurist Mark Stevenson looks at the next 30 years and asks, how can we re-invent ourselves for the future?
Adolescent mental health: resilience after childhood adversity (20 March). Adolescence is characterised by huge physiological changes as well as a rapid rise in mental health disorders. Around 45% of adolescent mental health problems are caused by childhood difficulties but fortunately not all who experience difficulties develop mental health disorders. Dr Anne-Laura van Harmelen discusses mechanisms that may help adolescents with a history of childhood difficulty to become more resilient.
Making algorithms trustworthy (21 March). Increasingly, algorithms are being used to make judgements about sensitive parts of our lives. How do we check how their conclusions were arrived at, and if they are valid and fair? Professor David Spiegelhalter looks at efforts to make algorithms transparent and trustworthy, using systems that make predictions for people with cancer as an example.
On the future: prospects for humanity (22 March). Professor Lord Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects on Earth and in space depend on our taking a different approach to planning for tomorrow.

This year’s Cambridge Science Festival also celebrates significant milestones in science, including the 200th anniversary of Cambridge Philosophical Society, Cambridge’s oldest scientific society, and 150 years since the publication of the modern Periodic Table.

Speaking ahead of the Festival, Dr Lucinda Spokes, Festival Manager, said: “We are tremendously proud of this year’s programme due to the variety of events and the calibre of our speakers from a range of institutions and industries.

“Alongside the meatier topics we have an array of events for all ages and interests across both weekends. We have everything from the science of perfumery and how your mood affects your taste, to a science version of 'Would I Lie to You?'

“One of my personal top picks are the open days at the various institutes and departments based at the West Cambridge site on Saturday 23 March. As always, the site is hosting some truly fascinating events, everything from the future of construction and how to make Alexa smarter, to how nanotechnology is opening up new routes in healthcare, and state-of-the-art approaches to low-cost solar energy and high-efficiency lighting solutions.

“A Festival of this magnitude would not be possible without the help from many people; we thank all our scientists, supporters, partners and sponsors, without whom the Festival would not happen. Most of all, we thank the audiences – there are more than 60,000 visits to the Festival events every year. We very much look forward to welcoming everyone from all ages to join us in March to explore the fabulous world of science.”

You can download the full programme here.

Bookings open on Monday 11 February at 11am.

This year’s Festival sponsors and partners are Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, AstraZeneca, MedImmune, Illumina, TTP Group, Science AAAS, Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ��, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge Science Centre, Cambridge Junction, IET, Hills Road 6th Form College, British Science Week, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partners, Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology, and Walters Kundert Charitable Trust. Media Partners: BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Cambridge Independent.

̽��ֱ��2019 Cambridge Science Festival is set to host more than 350 events as it explores a range of issues that affect today’s world, from challenges around climate change policy, improving safety and quality in healthcare, and adolescent mental health, to looking at what the next 25 years holds for us and whether quantum computers can change the world.

We have everything from the science of perfumery and how your mood affects your taste, to a science version of 'Would I Lie to You?'

Dr Lucinda Spokes

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Celebrating Cambridge’s LGBT+ scientists and engineers

cjb250 — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 23:00:09 +0000

To mark the event, the ̽��ֱ�� has released a film in which staff and researchers from the ̽��ֱ��, AstraZeneca and the Wellcome Genome Campus discuss their experiences of being LGBT+ in Cambridge – and why it is important to be who you are.

"While we have witnessed an increase in inclusion and equality efforts in STEM organisations and companies, we have to recognise the many challenges individuals continue to face, especially members of the LGBT+ community," said Dr Alfredo Carpineti, founder of Pride in STEM and one of the organisers of the initiative. “That's why we launched LGBTSTEM Day. We hope for this to be a day of celebration, of reflection, and of engagement. LGBTSTEM Day is part of the global push to increase the visibility of minorities in STEM fields.”

̽��ֱ��celebrations highlight the need for more role models to help enable LGBT+ scientists and engineers to be able to express themselves and to encourage others to consider a career in STEM. As Dr Sara El-Gebali, Scientific Database Curator at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) says in the film: “Sadly there are very few [LGBT role models in science]. It’s not because we’re not here, it’s because we’re not seen. We’re not officially here.”

Anna Langley, Computer Officer at Cambridge’s ̽��ֱ�� Information Services, was one of the founding members of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s LGBT+ Staff Network. She works in an environment where diversity is a problem, but says that things that are changing.

“Working in IT is still a very straight, white, male, cis environment,” she says. “But generally, I think that the university is trying to do the right thing in terms of diversity. It’s trying to ensure that people are treated fairly regardless of their background, their gender identity, their sexuality.”

Having a supportive work environment is essential in helping staff both personally and professionally, says Christopher Fox, Associate Scientist at AstraZeneca/MedImmune: “I don’t think I’d be as confident as I am at work if I didn’t have people around me who were openly gay or openly lesbian, people who are happy to be themselves. It made me feel that I can be myself.”

Elizabeth Wynn, Advanced Research Assistant at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, adds: “I think it’s important to be who you are, to be able to live as your authentic self, because you’re never going to be truly happy or productive or complete if you’re trying to silence or hide some part of yourself.”

For Langley, being ‘out’ at work is important not just for oneself, but to support others. “If you’re not visible as someone who’s LGB or T, intersexual, queer, non-binary, whatever, then you’re making it that little bit harder for other people to be open about their experience too, […] to be comfortable in their skin in the working environment.”

̽��ֱ��film’s contributors all describe Cambridge as being a very positive, open city in which to live and work.

“There’s a real emphasis on ‘it’s what you can bring to the table in STEM rather than who you are’,” says Fox. “It’s about what you can achieve, not what your sexuality is.”

Michael Rivera, a PhD student in the Department of Biological Anthropology, agrees: “With such a diverse, knowledgeable population in Cambridge, I think it’s very likely that you will find many friends to make here with common interests to you. You will find lots of allies who are open to different backgrounds and different sexualities – and maybe you’ll even find someone very special to spend time with!”

For Dr El-Gebali, her move to Cambridge has made a huge difference to her life. “Being in Cambridge has helped me to come out, not just to my friends and family, but also to work,” she says. “It’s the first time in my long career when I can officially say ‘Yeah, here I am and I’m not the only one’. Cambridge has been really, really good to me.”

This year, staff and students from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cambridge Assessment and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, marched together as they joined thousands of others in the parade at Pride London on Saturday 7 July. AstraZeneca and scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute also marched together as part of the Proud Science Alliance group.

Cambridge celebrated the first ever LGBTSTEM Day on 5 July – recognising all those who work in science, technology, engineering and medicine and who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other minority gender identities and sexual orientations.

I think that the university is trying to do the right thing in terms of diversity. It’s trying to ensure that people are treated fairly regardless of their background, their gender identity, their sexuality

Anna Langley

Celebrating Cambridge’s LGBT+ scientists and engineers

Yes

How to train your drugs: from nanotherapeutics to nanobots

sc604 — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 15:00:56 +0000

Chemotherapy benefits a great many patients but the side effects can be brutal.

When a patient is injected with an anti-cancer drug, the idea is that the molecules will seek out and destroy rogue tumour cells. However, relatively large amounts need to be administered to reach the target in high enough concentrations to be effective. As a result of this high drug concentration, healthy cells may be killed as well as cancer cells, leaving many patients weak, nauseated and vulnerable to infection.

One way that researchers are attempting to improve the safety and efficacy of drugs is to use a relatively new area of research known as nanothrapeutics to target drug delivery just to the cells that need it.

Professor Sir Mark Welland is Head of the Electrical Engineering Division at Cambridge. In recent years, his research has focused on nanotherapeutics, working in collaboration with clinicians and industry to develop better, safer drugs. He and his colleagues don’t design new drugs; instead, they design and build smart packaging for existing drugs.

Nanotherapeutics come in many different configurations, but the easiest way to think about them is as small, benign particles filled with a drug. They can be injected in the same way as a normal drug, and are carried through the bloodstream to the target organ, tissue or cell. At this point, a change in the local environment, such as pH, or the use of light or ultrasound, causes the nanoparticles to release their cargo.

Nano-sized tools are increasingly being looked at for diagnosis, drug delivery and therapy. “There are a huge number of possibilities right now, and probably more to come, which is why there’s been so much interest,” says Welland. Using clever chemistry and engineering at the nanoscale, drugs can be ‘taught’ to behave like a Trojan horse, or to hold their fire until just the right moment, or to recognise the target they’re looking for.

“We always try to use techniques that can be scaled up – we avoid using expensive chemistries or expensive equipment, and we’ve been reasonably successful in that,” he adds. “By keeping costs down and using scalable techniques, we’ve got a far better chance of making a successful treatment for patients.”

In 2014, he and collaborators demonstrated that gold nanoparticles could be used to ‘smuggle’ chemotherapy drugs into cancer cells in glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer in adults, which is notoriously difficult to treat. ̽��ֱ��team engineered nanostructures containing gold and cisplatin, a conventional chemotherapy drug. A coating on the particles made them attracted to tumour cells from glioblastoma patients, so that the nanostructures bound and were absorbed into the cancer cells.

Once inside, these nanostructures were exposed to radiotherapy. This caused the gold to release electrons that damaged the cancer cell’s DNA and its overall structure, enhancing the impact of the chemotherapy drug. ̽��ֱ��process was so effective that 20 days later, the cell culture showed no evidence of any revival, suggesting that the tumour cells had been destroyed.

While the technique is still several years away from use in humans, tests have begun in mice. Welland’s group is working with MedImmune, the biologics R&D arm of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, to study the stability of drugs and to design ways to deliver them more effectively using nanotechnology.

“One of the great advantages of working with MedImmune is they understand precisely what the requirements are for a drug to be approved. We would shut down lines of research where we thought it was never going to get to the point of approval by the regulators,” says Welland. “It’s important to be pragmatic about it so that only the approaches with the best chance of working in patients are taken forward.”

̽��ֱ��researchers are also targeting diseases like tuberculosis (TB). With funding from the Rosetrees Trust, Welland and postdoctoral researcher Dr Íris da luz Batalha are working with Professor Andres Floto in the Department of Medicine to improve the efficacy of TB drugs.

Their solution has been to design and develop nontoxic, biodegradable polymers that can be ‘fused’ with TB drug molecules. As polymer molecules have a long, chain-like shape, drugs can be attached along the length of the polymer backbone, meaning that very large amounts of the drug can be loaded onto each polymer molecule. ̽��ֱ��polymers are stable in the bloodstream and release the drugs they carry when they reach the target cell. Inside the cell, the pH drops, which causes the polymer to release the drug.

In fact, the polymers worked so well for TB drugs that another of Welland’s postdoctoral researchers, Dr Myriam Ouberaï, has formed a start-up company, Spirea, which is raising funding to develop the polymers for use with oncology drugs. Ouberaï is hoping to establish a collaboration with a pharma company in the next two years.

“Designing these particles, loading them with drugs and making them clever so that they release their cargo in a controlled and precise way: it’s quite a technical challenge,” adds Welland. “ ̽��ֱ��main reason I’m interested in the challenge is I want to see something working in the clinic – I want to see something working in patients.”

Could nanotechnology move beyond therapeutics to a time when nanomachines keep us healthy by patrolling, monitoring and repairing the body?

Nanomachines have long been a dream of scientists and public alike. But working out how to make them move has meant they’ve remained in the realm of science fiction.

But last year, Professor Jeremy Baumberg and colleagues in Cambridge and the ̽��ֱ�� of Bath developed the world’s tiniest engine – just a few billionths of a metre in size. It’s biocompatible, cost-effective to manufacture, fast to respond and energy efficient.

̽��ֱ��forces exerted by these ‘ANTs’ (for ‘actuating nano-transducers’) are nearly a hundred times larger than those for any known device, motor or muscle. To make them, tiny charged particles of gold, bound together with a temperature-responsive polymer gel, are heated with a laser. As the polymer coatings expel water from the gel and collapse, a large amount of elastic energy is stored in a fraction of a second. On cooling, the particles spring apart and release energy.

̽��ֱ��researchers hope to use this ability of ANTs to produce very large forces relative to their weight to develop three-dimensional machines that swim, have pumps that take on fluid to sense the environment and are small enough to move around our bloodstream.

Working with Cambridge Enterprise, the ̽��ֱ��’s commercialisation arm, the team in Cambridge's Nanophotonics Centre hopes to commercialise the technology for microfluidics bio-applications. The work is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the European Research Council.

“There’s a revolution happening in personalised healthcare, and for that we need sensors not just on the outside but on the inside,” explains Baumberg, who leads an interdisciplinary Strategic Research Network and Doctoral Training Centre focused on nanoscience and nanotechnology.

“Nanoscience is driving this. We are now building technology that allows us to even imagine these futures.”

Read more about research on future therapeutics in Research Horizons magazine.

Nanotechnology is creating new opportunities for fighting disease – from delivering drugs in smart packaging to nanobots powered by the world’s tiniest engines.

Designing these particles, loading them with drugs and making them clever so that they release their cargo in a controlled and precise way: it’s quite a technical challenge.

Mark Welland

Yu Ji

Artist's impression of a nanobot

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Moonlighting molecules: finding new uses for old enzymes

cjb250 — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 12:30:17 +0000

Enzymes are biological catalysts – molecules that speed up chemical reactions within living materials. Many enzymes are already well characterised and their functions fairly well understood. For example, the enzyme known as MMP8 is present in the connective tissue of most mammals, where it breaks the chemical bonds found in collagen.

In pre-clinical research published in the journal Chemistry & Biology, Dr Florian Hollfelder from the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge and Dr Lutz Jermutus,Senior Director, Research and Development at MedImmune, led a study to map a list of human enzymes (proteases) against potential protein drug targets.

Using automation technology at MedImmune, the team then tested each of the enzymes against each target protein in turn, allowing them to identify a significant number of so-far unknown interactions.

Of particular interest was how MMP8 was able to disable a molecule known as IL-13, which is known to play an important role in several inflammatory diseases such as asthma and dermatitis. ̽��ֱ��researchers believe this may be a previously-unknown way in which the body regulates the action of IL-13, preventing these diseases in the majority of individuals. If so, it could provide an interesting target for new drugs against these common diseases.

“MMP8 is well-known to biochemists and we all thought we understood its function, but it’s clear that this – and probably many other enzymes – ‘moonlight’ and have several functions within the body,” explains Dr Hollfelder. “Because the enzyme already had a ‘name’ and a function, nobody thought to see if it had a promiscuous side.”

Designing new enzymes has proven an extremely difficult technical challenge, hence the drive to find new uses for previously ‘understood’ enzymes. By focusing on human proteases, rather than bacterial proteases – which are actually easier to source – the researchers are confident that their research will be far more applicable to drug discovery.

“Our approach is new: we ‘recycle’ known enzymes and ask whether they can do other things than the ones they are known for,” adds Dr Jermutus. “In fact, we believe we have found other enzymes that could be similarly deployed against other disease-causing proteins, and this approach, if expanded, could provide further leads for new drugs.”

Commenting on the benefits of the collaboration with industry, Dr Hollfelder adds: “Without MedImmune, our work would have stopped after seeing and characterising the interactions. ̽��ֱ��additional extension to cell and mouse models would have been inconceivable in my basic science group.”

Reference
Urbach, C et al. Combinatorial Screening Identifies Novel Promiscuous Matrix Metalloproteinase Activities that Lead to Inhibition of the Therapeutic Target IL-13. Chemistry & Biology; 19 Nov 2015

A collaboration between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, has led researchers to identify a potentially significant new application for a well-known human enzyme, which may have implications for treating respiratory diseases such as asthma.

MMP8 is well-known to biochemists and we all thought we understood its function, but it’s clear that this – and probably many other enzymes – ‘moonlight’ and have several functions within the body

Florian Hollfelder

Emw

Structure of the MMP8 protein. Based on PyMOL rendering of PDB 1a85

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

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