BCHC News – Page 6 – Barrett Centre for Helminth Control

Welsh Government announces new funding for Welsh students

The Welsh Government has today announced that it will be funding a new bursary scheme to attract Welsh students to do their master’s degrees in Wales. The scheme aims to increase the number of Welsh graduates who remain in or return to Wales to undertake a master’s degree in STEMM subjects. Welsh students starting a…

BCHC PhD Student successfully defends thesis

At the end of June, Alessandra Crusco, a PhD Student with Prof. Karl Hoffmann successfully defended her thesis entitled ‘Anti-infective diterpenoids: design, synthesis, evaluation and metabolomics studies‘. On completion of her thesis Alessandra has taken a Postdoctoral position at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University and continues to work in collaboration…

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…

The BCHC deals with difficult datasets

In early May The BCHC welcomed Dr Matt Denwood, an Associate Professor in Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Copenhagen. Dr Denwood delivered a very interesting seminar in the development statistical methods that can be used for analysis of difficult data sets such as those commonly found within parasitology. Dr Denwood also…

Aberystwyth and Swansea Universities strengthen relations

At the end of March, the BCHC welcomed Professor Cathy Thornton from Swansea University along with members of her team for a one-day meeting focused on building collaborative relations between the two universities. This visit was hosted by Prof Karl Hoffmann and Dr Russ Morphew and discussions focused around knowledge exchange in EV-related biology and…

Aberystwyth University takes part in British Science Week

In Early March Undergraduate, Masters and PhD students together with University staff came together to deliver a series of activities related to different aspects of parasitology and drug discovery as part of Aberystwyth Universities commitment to British Science week. Over the course of 3 days over 2000 pupils from local primary and high schools visited…

BCHC members present at British Society for Parasitology spring meeting

This April researchers from the BCHC travelled to Manchester to take part in the British Society for Parasitology spring meeting. This year’s meeting was held in partnership with the Belgian Society of Parasitology and Protistology (BSPP) and the Dutch Society for Parasitology (NVP). Keynote speakers included Prof Joanne Webster (Royal Veterinary College) and Prof Patricia Wright…

BCHC News (page 6)