Amy Rees

Staff User

Kinases meeting – 13 September 2024

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On 13 September, The University of Leeds welcomed researchers from across the UK to a half-day, interdisciplinary meeting organized by the SPiDR project team on cell cycle kinases.

The meeting was aimed at researchers either interested in or working with cell cycle kinases and featured excellent talks from Prof. Erica Golemis (Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia)​ Prof Jane Endicott (Newcastle University)​, Prof Eileen Kennedy (University of Georgia, Athens)​, Dr Cath Lindon (University of Cambridge)​ and Dr Tanya Soliman (Barts Cancer Centre, London).​

Prizes for best poster went to Jane Bennett, a PhD student at Imperial, for her poster on Aurora A kinase- AMPK signalling axis in mitosis, and Jack Roberts, a PhD student at The University of Leeds, for his poster on how affimer reagents reshape allosteric modulation of Aurora Kinase A via a novel druggable pocket.

Thank you to everyone who came and contributed to making the meeting such a vibrant event, and to The Biochemical Society for their sponsorship.

Early Career Researcher Meeting – 10 June 2024

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On 10th June, The University of Leeds hosted a one-day, interdisciplinary meeting organized by the SPiDR project team on intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs). 

The meeting was open to everyone and brought together over forty researchers across disciplines to discuss the biological role of IDRs in health and disease and the physiochemical properties that make them integral to these processes. 

The programme included keynotes from Professor Peter Tompa (VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology), Dr Sarah Shammas (University of Oxford), and Dr Markus Schade (AstraZeneca).  

Jack talks at Pint of Science

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SPiDR’s Jack Roberts gave a talk at Pint of Science on 13 May on the role of protein disorder in health and disease.

The theme of the evening was ‘From Bench to Bedside’.

Pint of Science is an annual worldwide science festival which brings researchers to local social spaces to share their scientific discoveries with the public.

In2Science

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Over the summer holidays, Jennifer Miles, Matt Batchelor and Isha Mohan hosted two sixth form students on the In2Science scheme in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The students were introduced to numerous techniques that are used daily on the SPIDR project and given hands on experience in protein crystallisation.

Jennifer Miles presents at Soapbox Science

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On a beautifully sunny day in June, Jennifer Miles got on her soapbox to present her research to members of the general public in York with a talk, ‘Seeing Small: Studying the ‘toolkit’ inside our bodies’.

Jennifer’s aim was to present some of the techniques we use on the SPIDR project and why we do them, and to promote structural biology and women in STEM.

Soapbox Science is a novel public outreach platform for promoting women and non-binary scientists and the science they do.

Notre Dame Schools visit

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Andy Wilson visited Notre Dame 6th form College in Leeds to give a talk to their lower sixth students about his career.

During his visit, Andy outlined the drug discovery process and explained the important role that chemists play in this process. Andy highlighted the particular challenges associated with discovering new medicines for targets such as protein-protein interactions (PPIs), which typically involve intrinsically disordered domains. Addressing such challenges could translate into potential treatments for major societal diseases. Andy used the PoPPI protein matchmaking game to highlight the complexity of protein-protein interactions.

Head of Department for Chemistry and Physics Rachel Hodgetts said, “Our students really enjoyed learning about the interactions involved in certain drugs and could relate it to their study of intermolecular forces.”

https://www.notredamecoll.ac.uk/news/chemists-key-disease-treatment-students-discover

Rob Dawber talks at BACR & RSC CBBG meeting

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Rob Dawber gave the talk ‘Investigating key protein-protein interactions of the Aurora-A Kinase’ at the BACR & RSC CBBG meeting on 2 December 2021. This virtual meeting was a joint event between the RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Chemistry (CBBG) group and the British Association for Cancer Research (BACR). The aim of the meeting was to bring together two communities with a mutual interest in advancing knowledge in chemical biology as applied to cancer research.

Rob is a final-year PhD student supervised by Andy Wilson and Richard Bayliss.

Webinar 4 June 2021: Deciphering the function of intrinsically disordered protein regions: new horizons

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It is with great pleasure that we invite you to attend “Deciphering the function of intrinsically disordered protein regions: new horizons’ – an interactive, online webinar that will take place (via Zoom) on Friday 4th June, 14.00-17.00 GMT. A series of short pre-recorded talks will be available from Thursday 3rd June for registered attendees to view before the meeting.

More information and register here