BCHC News – Page 9 – Barrett Centre for Helminth Control

Aberystwyth University hosts British Society for Parasitology Spring meeting

This April, Aberystwyth University hosted the British Society for Parasitology spring meeting. The meeting was last hosted by Aberystwyth over 30 years ago. 432 delegates travelled from as far away as New Zealand and Australia to present their work at this prestigious event. All 13 members of the Parasitology and Epidemiology Research Group here at…

Aberystwyth Student scoops prize at Cardiff Postgraduate Research Day

Alessandra Crusco, a 3rd year PhD student at Aberystwyth University has been presented with one of 3 prizes awarded for oral presentations at the recent ‘Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Postgraduate Research Day’. Alessandra is co-supervised by Prof. Karl Hoffmann (Aberystwyth University) and Prof. Andrew Westwell (Cardiff University) and as such was invited to participate…

The BCHC talks p-values

In late February 2018, the BCHC welcomed Prof. Daniel Berrar, Head of the Data Science Lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology for a 1-day visit to Aberystwyth. Daniel delivered a thought provoking seminar on parasites, paradoxes, and the use of p-values in research. Daniels talk generated a lot of interesting discussion points, thank-you Daniel for…

Prof. Russell Stothard visits Aberystwyth

In February 2018, the BCHC were delighted to host a 1-day visit by Prof. Russell Stothard, Chair in Medical Parasitology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Russell delivered a fascinating seminar on the control of helminthiases in Africa and drew attention to a link between schistosomiasis and the spread of HIV in Africa. Thank-you…

BCHC PhD student successfully defends thesis

We are delighted to announce that yesterday BCHC PhD student, Kezia Whatley, successfully defended her thesis titled “Synergistic application of high-throughput screening (HTS) and high content imaging (HCI) technologies with in silico drug repositioning techniques to identify new chemotherapeutic targets in S. mansoni” Congratulations Dr Whatley!!

Exciting collaboration between BCHC and the Oxford Protein Production Facility

A BCHC PhD student, Gilda Padalino, recently returned from a trip to Oxford where she was working in collaboration with Professor Ray Owens at the Oxford Protein Production Facility (OPPF). Their aim was to express some of the enzymes involved in histone methylation in Schistosoma mansoni the parasite responsible for the human disease Schistosomiasis. Large…

Talking Science in the September sun

Early this September, BCHC PhD students attended the 11thMolecular and Cellular Biology of Helminth Parasites conference in Hydra, Greece. Against the picturesque background of the Aegean Sea, Tom Gasan presented a poster detailing a novel vaccine candidate in the fight against Schistosomiasis. Chelsea Davis and Clare Collett both presented posters on Veterinary Parasitology. All three…

There’s gold on them there vesicles!

As part of the BCHC’s focus on extra-cellular vesicles (EV) in helminthology we recently hosted a visit from Allan Cameron, a 4th year PhD student from the Devitt Laboratory, Aston University. Allan is researching the role of apoptotic cell derived extracellular vesicles (ACdEV) on the immune system. He visited Aberystwyth University to utilise the expertise…

Aberystwyth student has letter published in Veterinary Record

Fiona Tyson a PhD student at Aberystwyth University has published a letter in Veterinary Record detailing recent outreach work conducted by herself and others at this years’ Royal Welsh Agricultural Show. As part of a collaboration between Aberystwyth University and Techion UK, faecal egg counts (FEC) were performed on horses attending this years’ show using…

Let’s talk drug discovery!

In mid-July, the BCHC hosted a unique 1-day ‘mini symposium’ with colleagues from Cardiff University and Phytoquest to share the latest findings from the team’s research. Guests were Professor Andrew Westwell, Dr Andrea Brancale and Dr Salvatore Ferla from Cardiff University and Dr Robert Nash of Phytoquest and presentations were delivered by eight staff and postgraduate students of the Hoffmann…

BCHC News (page 9)