BCHC News – Page 9 – Barrett Centre for Helminth Control

Aberystwyth hosts second drug discovery meeting

In mid-July, the BCHC hosted a second drug discovery mini symposium. Again, our colleagues Professor Andrew Westwell, Professor Andrea Brancale and Dr Salvatore Ferla travelled up from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University to listen to presentations delivered by staff and postgraduate students of the Hoffmann laboratory. With plenty of time…

Taking Schistosomes to the stage

At the end of May, BCHC members from the Hoffmann lab travelled to Builth Wells to deliver interactive science experiments 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 to explain the Schistosome life-cycle and encouraged members of…

BCHC strengthens links in India

The BCHC has been delighted to welcome Dr P. A. Ahammed Shareef from the Department of Zoology at PMSO College, Kerala, India as a visiting Fellow during April and May. Shareef has previously visited Aberystwyth in 2013 as part of a BBSRC funded research project tackling Fasciolaisis in the UK and India working with both…

Aberystwyth University student scoops prize at BSP conference

Alessandra Crusco, a third year PhD student at IBERS Aberystwyth University, received one of the five poster awards at the British Society for Parasitology Annual Spring meeting this April. The completion was sponsored by BMC (Parasites and Vectors) and Elsevier. The competition was judged by BSP council members Dr Poppy Lamberton, Prof. Domenico Otranto, Dr…

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…

BCHC News (page 9)