Lab news
March
Saul has
been appointed a member of the BBSRC's Pool of Experts.
February 2012
The UCL algal research group, Algae@UCL, hosted the Algal Biotechnology: Biofuels and Beyond conference on 13th February.
The conference, aimed to enable researchers to make connections and to exchange ideas with other members of the UK algal research community, was attended by over 130 participants from academia and industry.
The one-day conference
consisted of talks by internationally recognised
researchers and industrial practitioners based in the UK, all of whom
have made
and continue to make a strong impact on the algae community. There were
also
introductory presentations and poster exhibitions showcasing work
currently
being conducted both by industry and academia.
Please see abstracts for talks and abstracts for posters for further details.
January 2012
Congratulations to Tanya
who completed her PhD thesis and passed her viva voce examination with
flying colours!
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December 2011
L-R: Jo, Tom, Lamya, Henry and Laura at the Biotechnology YES final
Many congratulations to Instant Diagnostics for being awarded second place in the Biotechnology YES grand final! Henry (Managing Director), Joanna (Finance Director), Lamya (Marketing Director), Tom (R&D Director) and Laura (Operations Director) won their individual stream of the competition to go head-to-head for the national award. A split vote on the judging panel meant that an executive decision had to be taken by BBSRC Chairman Professor Sir Tom Blundell. The team, who designed a business plan to create a self-testing STI kit, won awards for "best financial planning strategy" and "best healthcare business plan". Well done, team!
October 2011
L-R: Tom, Henry and Jo (back row), Laura and Lamya (front row) celebrate their win at the Biotechnology YES regional competition
- Congratulations to Henry, Jo, Lamya, Laura and Tom for winning the Biotechnology YES (Young Entrepreneur Scheme) East of England regional competition for setting up their hypothetical company Instant Diagnostics, and designing a self-testing STI kit. The team also won the prize for “best elevator pitch” and Henry for “best question to a real company pitch”. Well done, team, and good luck for the final!
- We welcome Dr Rosie Young to the group. Rosie recently obtained her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. Her research focussed on the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis pathway in Haemophilus parainfluenzae and how the LPS structures within the outer membrane of the bacterium influence pathogen-host interactions. Rosie will be joining the BBSRC funded "Phycobricks" project - a joint programme between Saul's lab and Alison Smith's in Cambridge, aimed at developing synthetic biology tools and technologies for the metabolic engineering of algae.
September 2011
Congratulations to Laura
for her prize for her oral presentation at the recent "Plastid
Preview" conference held at Royal Holloway, University of London.
June 2011
- We welcome Dr Tommaso Barbi to the group. Tom did his PhD in molecular immunology and plant biotechnology with Julian Ma at St George's Hospital, and subsequently worked as a research scientist and manager for a plant biotechnology company in Trieste, Italy. He will be joining the FP7 GIAVAP programme aimed at the development of techniques for the genetic improvement of industrially important microalgae.
- Congratulations to Lamya for her second place in UCL's "Tell Everyone your Dissertation (TEyD)" competition.
March 2011
- A £6000 grant from UCL’s Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities fund has been awarded to Luiza Campos (Civil Engineering), Saul Purton, Frank Baganz (Biochemical Engineering) and Marcos Cruz (Bartlett School of Architecture). The award will support an EngD project to construct an outdoor photobioreactor for growing algae on-site at UCL.
- Congratulations to Lamya for her prize in the UCL Graduate School Poster competition.
- Marco Lizzul was invited to exhibit an early prototype of his photobioreactor at Ecobuild 2011, following selection of the project by a panel from the EPSRC and Technology Strategy Board. Ecobuild is one of the world's biggest exhibitions for sustainable design, construction and the built environment.
February 2011
Alison Smith and Saul Purton
have been awarded a three year
grant by the BBSRC to
investigate the molecular basis of symbiosis
between algae and bacteria.
January 2011
- Saul Purton and Alison Smith (Plant Sciences, Cambridge) have been awarded a three year grant by the BBSRC to develop synthetic biology tools for algae and to use these tools to demonstrate the creation of designer algae for biofuel production.
- We welcome Ben Mackrow to the group. Ben is studying for an MRes in Synthetic Biology and his research project will investigate: i) the development of a new selectable marker for nuclear transformation of Chlamydomonas; ii) the use of advanced cloning techniques to introduce multiple transgenes into cyanobacteria.
December 2010
A consortium of Israeli and
European algal biologists that
includes the Purton group have been awarded a €5.6 million grant from
the
European Union. The project is entitled “Genetic Improvement of Algae
for Value
Added Products (GIAVAP)”.
November 2010
Saul Purton has been appointed
a Fellow of the Cambridge
Philosophical Society.
October 2010
We welcome to the group three new PhD students: Laura Stoffels, Stephanie Braun and Yanan (Nancy) Xu.
Laura is funded jointly by UCL and through a UCL IMPACT Scholarship, and her project focuses
on the production of therapeutic proteins in the Chlamydomonas chloroplast. Stephanie and Nancy are joint
appointments with the lab of Frank Baganz (Biochemical Engineering, UCL).
Steffi will be researching the optimisation of recombinant protein production
in algae, whilst Nancy will investigate the production and use of algal lipids
for biofuels.
Page last modified on 05 mar 12 10:13
