Academics presented their ground-breaking research on quantum technology, natural language processing and bioinspired robotics, for example, and discussed how it is being applied, through partnerships with private and public sectors, to address challenges in healthcare, ethics and sustainability.
PhD graduate Weronika Gruszka has been named the winner of the 2023 Fraser and Norma Stoddart PhD Prize. This prestigious prize is awarded annually to PhD graduate who has shown not only excellence in research, but has also contributed to the life of students within the School.
Weronika recently completed her PhD research within the Garden group. She will return to the School of Chemistry in July to receive her prize and share her research with students and staff.
The first two authors are Emma Shuttleworth, a recent Chemical Physics graduate, and Dr Rui Apóstolo, who supervised the project. Rui is a former PDRA in Philip Camp’s group, and now works for EPCC. The final-year BSc project was carried out in collaboration with colleagues at The Scotch Whisky Research Institute in nearby Riccarton.
Researchers have discovered that synapses, which send essential signals through the brain, are also transporting toxic proteins known as tau around the brain.
Large clumps of the protein tau – called tangles – form in brain cells and are one of the defining features of Alzheimer’s disease. As these tangles spread through the brain during the disease there is a decline in brain function.
Life is unpredictable, and across the board it is commonplace to find yourself changing your career direction and needing to take a career break. This may be for a host of reasons from having a family, caring responsibilities, or health problems. Returning to your career can be challenging, and the issue for researchers, is it can be extremely difficult to pick off where you left off due to the fast-changing landscape of science and technology, and the resistance for truly flexible roles that promote a healthier work/life balance.
As part of British Science Week 2023, Chunchun Ye was one of three University of Edinburgh researchers named finalists in the STEM for Britain Awards:
A group of university research scientists has formed a company to adapt open-source academic chemical software for use in the pharmaceutical industry.
Spinout OpenBioSim, from the University of Edinburgh, is working with pharmaceutical companies to tailor its software, developed for research, for drug discovery.
Open-source software (OSS), where the source code is available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute, is becoming increasingly common in academia but, because it is difficult to commercialise, is less used in industry.
The Lady Edith Wolfson Fellowship Programme attracts and develops the careers of outstanding young Clinical and Non-Clinical researchers. The programme is funded by the MND Association as part of their aim to train and retain the ‘brightest and best’ laboratory and clinical researchers, to create future scientific leaders in the field of MND Research.
Professor Andrew Lawrence from the School of Chemistry has been announced as a finalist in the UK Blavatnik Awards 2023. This adds to his impressive accolades including being awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Grant in 2021, an EPSRC New Horizons Grant in 2020 and the BMOS-RSC Young Investigator Distinction Award in 2018. This is the second year in a row that a School of Chemistry researcher has been named a finalist, following Professor Stephen Thomas in 2022.
School of Chemistry graduate Dr Ellie Tanaka recently won the 2022 Fraser and Norma Stoddart PhD Prize in recognition of her exceptional research accomplishments and contributions to the life of students in the School.
