BCHC News – Barrett Centre for Helminth Control

Miniature Worlds symposium 2024

On the 8th of November, members of the Hoffmann and Rinaldi research labs attended the Miniature Worlds symposium at Cambridge University, where pioneering organoid research for parasitology was presented and discussed. Delegates heard from experts on a range of developing in-vitro culture systems for parasites such as whipworm, liver fluke and cryptosporidium. Attendees were extremely…

Viva Success for Dr Sarah Davey

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Davey who successfully defended her thesis “Repositioning histone modification inhibitors as next generation flukicides” on the 6th November 2024. The viva was examined by Professor John Dalton from the University of Galway and Dr Debbie Nash from Aberystwyth University, with Dr Martin Swain as chair. Sarah said “Many thanks to Prof.…

DLS Festival of Research 2024

On Friday 13th September, the Department of Life Sciences at Aberystwyth University held the second DLS Festival of Research. After last years success, staff and students were pleased to welcome back the event. This year, there were posters and presentations from across the research groups with a strong ECR presence. Talks included: Dr. Josephine Forde-Thomas “Leveraging…

BCHC members attend The Hydra Helminth Conference 2024

This September, BCHC members Prof. Karl Hoffmann and Dr. Jo Forde-Thomas attended The Hydra Helminth Conference in Greece. This Conference focuses on Helminths and helps to drive forward this fast-moving field of parasitology. The keynote speaker this year was Prof. Alex Loukas from James Cook University, Australia. Prof. Karl Hoffmann gave his talk on ‘Development…

FoodBiosystems DTP Summer School 2024

In July this year FoodBioSystems DTP held a Summer School at University of Reading. This event gave students a chance to network, share research and develop new transferable skills at the workshops. Everyone had an opportunity to present their ongoing research in a friendly constructive atmosphere. Corey Steele presented her poster on ‘Ruminating over Host-Parasite…

BCHC collaborates with TULIP Graduate School, Perpignan

This month, Professor Karl Hoffmann participated in the ‘Functional Biology and Ecology’ Master’s Degree in Perpignan, France. There, as part of the TULIP Graduate School, Prof. Hoffmann delivered a lecture to students on neglected tropical diseases and drug discovery. He also had the opportunity to meet with staff conducting research on schistosome/host interactions and how…

Pursing the next phases of exciting work

In April, members from the BCHC visited collaborators within the University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit and the School of Life Sciences to discuss our annual progress on schistosome drug discovery. This work, funded by the Wellcome Trust, has contributed to new methods for characterising how schistosomes respond to drugs and led to the identification…

British Society for Parasitology Spring Meeting 2024

The University of Liverpool hosted this year’s British Society for Parasitology (BSP) Spring Meeting in April. The event brought together the parasitologists from around the world to discuss their latest research. During the four day meeting, Prof. Jo Hamilton the President of BSP welcomed the delegates and several other BCHC members were involved in presenting…

British Science Week 2024

Aberystwyth University recently welcomed hundreds of school children from the local area to celebrate British Science Week. This annual event is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and Maths (STEM), this year’s theme was Time. Several university departments were involved including BCHC members, running stands related to STEM subjects. The interactive activities encouraged the pupils…

The Queen awards BCHC members

This week, several members of BCHC attended a ceremony in Buckingham Palace to receive the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for pioneering work in parasitology. Queen Camilla presented the award and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also praised the prize winners. The prestigious award recognises the work of scientists in the Department of Life Sciences here at Aberystwyth…