News

Papers published

Barbier, D., Garcia-Verdugo, I., Pothlichet, J., Khazen, R., Descamps, D., Rousseau, K., Thornton, D., Si-Tahar, M., Touqui, L., Chignard, M. and Sallenave, J-M. (2012). Influenza A induces the major secreted airway mucin MUC5AC in a protease-EGFR-ERK-Sp1 dependent pathway. Am. J. Resp. Cell & Mol. Biol., 47, 149-57. PubMed

Byron, A., Humphries, J.D., Craig, S.E., Knight, D and Humphries, M.J. (2012). Proteomic analysis of α4β1 integrin adhesion complexes reveals α-subunit-dependent protein recruitment. Proteomics 12, 2107-14. doi: 10.1002/pmic.201100487. PubMed

Jeanes, A.I., Wang, P., Moreno-Layseca, P., Paul, N., Cheung, J., Tsang, R., Akhtar, N., Foster, F.M., Brennan, K. and Streuli, C.H. (2012). Specific β-containing integrins exert differential control on proliferation and 2D collective cell migration in mammary epithelial cells. J. Biol. Chem. 287, 24103-12. PubMed

Papers accepted

Farnell, E., Rousseau, K., Thornton, D. J., Bowyer, P. and Herrick, S. (2012). Expression and secretion of Aspergillus fumigatus proteases is regulated in response to different protein substrates. Fungal Biology in press.

Williams, A.,  Christley, R.M.,  McKane, S.A.,  Roberts, V.L.H., Clegg, P.D. and  Williams, N.J.. (2012).Antimicrobial resistance changes in enteric Escherichia coli of horses during hospitalisation: Resistance profiling of isolates. The Veterinary Journal in press.

Conferences

Keith Brennan, “Notch targeting in cancer".  Developing an in vivo model of RBPj-dependent transformation of breast epithelial cells

Tony Day, Gordon Research Conference on Proteoglycans (Late Breaking Science Session), Andover, USA, 7-12 July. Crystal structure of heavy chain 1 (HC1) from human inter-alpha-inhibitor (IaI)

Tony also presented a poster on Doug Dyer's work: TSG-6 inhibits CXCL8-mediated transendothelial migration of neutrophils via inhibition of the CXCL8-GAG interaction

And was an author on another poster: Variability of the chondroitin sulfate chain of bikunin determines SHAP-HA formation

Public engagement

Thanks to Christoph Ballestrem, Ray Boot-Handford, Adam Byron, Holly Birchenough, Keith Brennan, Ann Canfield, Pat Caswell, Rawshan Choudhury, Claire Hartley, Jenny Heyes, Rebecca Holley, Louise Kung, Teresa Massam-Wu, Lorna Mullan, Sam Roberts, Joe Robertson, Ruth Steer, Charles Streuli, Jen Thomson,

Mark Travis, Scott Walker, Pengo Wang and Joanna Williams who kindly gave up our time to make this year's Wellcome to the Matrix event such a great success. Feedback from teachers and pupils alike was fantastic, with most notable praise being for the scientists that the students worked with, both in the labs and in the museum.

Our next Centre event will be part of the Manchester Science Festival in October.

Public engagement

The Baldock lab have been hosting Bilal Saddique, a student studying at Holy Cross Sixth Form College, as part of the Nuffleid Bursary Scheme. He has been in the lab for three weeks and will complete his project by the end of the summer. In addition, the lab is hosting Catherine Byrne, a Manchester Biochemistry undergraduate, on a two week work experience placement.

The Brennan, Canfield, Day, Gilmore, Kielty and Streuli labs hosted six A’-level students from Altrincham Grammar School for Boys during their end-of-year work experience week. Here is some of the science they learnt:

Mike Leverentz and Chris Mills demonstrated the basics of cell signaling and protein-protein interactions through the use of immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting. Becky Brading instructed them in the fundamentals cell culture, and Lorna Wilkinson illustrated the elementary principles of cloning followed by the dissection of a mouse (much to their delight!).  Teresa Massam-Wu, accompanied by Sheona Drummond, showed the boys how to culture human mesenchymal stem cells and then looked at receptor–ECM interactions using live cell imaging. They also saw how to acquire high resolution Z-series of human cartilage and perform subsequent image analysis involving deconvolution and the generation of 3D movies. Becki Holley showed them how to count cells and assess cell viability using a haemocytometer, whilst Rawshan Choudhury, Stu Cain, Andy Baldwin, Becky Taylor and Sarah Farrar introduced them to a wide range of biochemical techniques, including immunofluorescence, protein expression and purification, as well as protein electrophoresis followed by western blotting. Finally, they shadowed Tiarnan Keenan's dissection of human eyes (always a crowd pleaser!).

Other news

Tiarnan Keenan from the Day lab has won the Fight for Sight Award 2012, which will be presented at the Royal College of Ophthalmologists's Admission Ceremony in London on 7 September.