BCHC takes part in British Science Week

At the beginning of March, Aberystwyth University took part in British Science week, a UK wide initiative to celebrate science, technology engineering and maths. Over the course of 3 days pupils from local primary and secondary schools visited Penglais campus to engage in a range of lively science activities, games and quizzes. Undergraduate, Masters and…

BCHC visit local primary school

During October, Dr Jo Forde-Thomas visited local primary school, Ysgol Gynradd Llanilar, to deliver 4 sessions on ‘The world of Parasites’. Dr Forde-Thomas talked with pupils ranging in age from 4 through to 11 about some commonly encountered parasites before leading students through a drug discovery experiment drawing parallels to the work currently being conducted…

BCHC establishes new collaborations with the University of Oxford

Last Month the BCHC welcomed Professor Stuart Conway from the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford for collaborative discussions. Professor Conway’s research focuses on the use of synthetic organic chemistry to enable the study of biological problems. Discussions focused around collaborations into the development of new anti-schistosomal agents. This proved to be a hugely productive…

When beheading isn’t the end…..

Yesterday the BCHC welcomed Professor Aziz Aboobaker to Aberystwyth University to speak with us about his work. Aziz is particularly interested in understanding how some animals are able to regenerate and the stem cells that underpin this process. His work uses the planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea as a model system to investigate the process of…

The BCHC meets the creator of the ‘Guardians of the Gut’

We were recently joined by Dr Lindsay Hall, the Microbiome group leader from the Institute of Food Research based at the Quadram Institute who presented a fascinating seminar on the establishment of the microbiota in newborn babies and the important role that this plays in an infant’s growth and development. In addition to her research…

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

This morning we were joined by Prof Mingzhong Li, Professor of Crystallisation Science & Drug Delivery at Leicester School of Pharmacy at De Montfort University. Professor Li gave an impressive presentation on the co-crystallisation technology his lab has been developing to improve the bio availability of chemical compounds being pursued as chemo-therapeutics.  Discussions focused on…

BCHC PhD Student travels to the USA

In May, a BCHC PhD Student, Ben Hulme travelled to the USA as part in a knowledge exchange with Professor Paul Brindley’s laboratory at George Washington University, USA. Ben spent time learning how to optimise a new functional genomics technique, CRISPR-CAS9, which has never been performed in adult S. mansoni worms before. Preliminary findings looked…

BCHC welcomes PhD student as part of knowledge exchange

In early June the BCHC hosted a visit from Alice Costain. Alice is a 3rd year PhD student at the Leiden University Medical Center who is currently working in Andrew MacDonalds laboratories at Manchester University. Alice came to Aberystwyth to gain training in the handling of our infected snails and processing of parasitic worms. While…

BCHC hosts 3 annual Drug-Discovery Symposium

In early June the BCHC hosted the third annual drug discovery mini symposium. Our colleagues Professor Andrew Westwell, Professor Andrea Brancale, Dr Salvatore Ferla, Dr Marcella Bassetto and Miss Alessandra Crusco from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University and Dr Robert Nash from local biotechnology company Phytoquest again joined us to…

BCHC take parasites to the stage

At the end of May, BCHC members from the Hoffmann lab travelled to Cardiff to deliver interactive science games to children of all ages competing at one of Europe’s largest cultural youth festivals, the Urdd National Eisteddfod. We took our custom made ‘plush parasites’ along with a series of interactive displays to highlight the different types…