BCHC News – Page 5 – Barrett Centre for Helminth Control

BCHC PhD student successfully defends thesis

The BCHC is delighted to announce that on the 16th January, PhD student John Tomes successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘Imaging Ellipsometry as a Novel Detection Method for Protein-Protein Interactions’. John’s PhD was co-supervised by Dr Russ Morphew (IBERS) and Dr Dave Langstaff (Physics) and was focused on investigating whether image ellipsometry could be…

Viva Success

The BCHC is very pleased to announce that on Monday 6th January 2020, Holly Craven a PhD student with Prof. Karl Hoffmann successfully defended her thesis entitled ‘Analysis of quadruplex DNA structures in Schistosoma mansoni and their potential as therapeutic targets’. Professor Christoph Grunau travelled from University of Perpignan via Domitia to examine Holly along…

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 welcomes new MRes students

At the beginning of October, Aberystwyth University welcomed the second cohort of MRes students enrolled in our Parasite control course. This course focuses specifically on parasites and the diseases that they cause. Over the next year our new cohort of students will gain expert knowledge in the detection, prevention and control of protozoan as well…

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…

Aberystwyth named Welsh University of the Year

Aberystwyth University has been named Welsh University of the Year for 2020 by The Times / The Sunday Times Good University Guide. This latest accolade means the University has been recognised by The Times / The Sunday Times Good University Guide for three years running. In September 2018 Aberystwyth was named University of the Year for Teaching Quality, and…

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…

BCHC sponsors Helminth Extracellular Vesicles Workshop

Helminth Extracellular Vesicles Workshop Bratsera Hotel, Hydra, Greece, 31 Aug – 01 Sep 2019 The BCHC has been delighted to sponsor the recent Helminth Extracellular Vesicles (EV) Workshop held in association with the Parasitic Helminth Conference on the beautiful island of Hydra in Greece. The two day workshop was attended by thirty researchers from around…

BCHC PhD Student successfully defends thesis

The BCHC is delighted to announce that at the end of August, Gilda Padalino a PhD Student with Prof. Karl Hoffmann successfully defended her thesis entitled ‘Identification of new compounds targeting the Schistosoma mansoni protein methylation machinery‘. Congratulazioni Gilda!

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…

BCHC News (page 5)