Theme issue of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews

Together with Mathias Brust, we have co-edited a theme issue of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews which include the following six articles:

• Toxicology of nanoparticles, Andreas Elsaesser, C. Vyvyan Howard
• Luminescent quantum dots as platforms for probing in vitro and in vivo biological processes, Hedi Mattoussi, Goutam Palui, Hyon Bin Na
• Quantum dots to tail single bio-molecules inside living cells, Paolo Pierobon, Giovanni Cappello
• Physico-chemical parameters that govern nanoparticles fate also dictate rules for their molecular evolution, Sandrine Dufort, Lucie Sancey, Jean-Luc Coll
• Gold nanorods: Their potential for photothermal therapeutics and drug delivery, tempered by the complexity of their biological interactions, Alaaldin M. Alkilany, Lucas B. Thompson, Stefano P. Boulos, Patrick N. Sisco, Catherine J. Murphy
• Monolayer coated gold nanoparticles for delivery applications, Subinoy Rana, Avinash Bajaj, Rubul Mout, Vincent M. Rotello

and, of course, our Editorial, which starts as follows,

Biological systems, albeit magnificently well organized on the nanometer scale, do not contain nanoparticles, least those of metals or semiconductors. This should be sufficient reason to question the need to dedicate a themed issue of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews to “Biological Interactions of Nanoparticles”. What is new and needs to be highlighted?

That is the question… for the answer, you will have to read the Editoral and the articles!

Amyloid-Derived Peptide Forms Self-Assembled Monolayer

on Gold Nanoparticle with a Curvature-Dependent β-Sheet Structure…

That is the title of our ms just accepted in ACS Nano; congratulations to Chris, first author, and thanks to Martin Volk and David Middleton for their invaluable help with the use of FTIR and solid state NMR to elucidate the structure of peptides at the surface of gold nanoparticles.

Dr Shaw

Long overdue post: Chris viva was on the 15th of December. After minor corrections, he will officially be Dr Shaw. Congratulations!

Research misconduct in the UK

Time to act say COPE Chair, Liz Wager, and BMJ editor in chief, Fiona Godlee, who discuss the lack of systems in place to investigate research misconduct in the UK. The editorial is published in the BMJ and is also available here; excerpt:

The meeting will hear that research misconduct is alive and well
in the UK even when tightly defined as intentional acts of
falsification and fabrication. It is almost certainly flourishing
when defined more broadly—as some are now arguing it should
be 12—to include a wide range of questionable behaviours that
threaten the integrity of science, including suppression of data
and failure to publish research results.

 

Fmoc-diphenylalanine hydrogels: understanding the variability in reported mechanical properties

That’s the title of Jaclyn Raeburn’s article. She is a PhD student in Dave Adams group, and we are delighted to have contributed to this story now published in the journal Soft Matter.

Lara to present her results at BIOS SPIE Photonics West

Colloidal Nanocrystals for Biomedical Applications, San Francisco, 21 – 26 January 2012

Shimon Weiss in Liverpool

The Leica lectures bring regularly excellent speakers to Liverpool. Not to be missed, on the 6th of December, 5:00pm, Liverpool University, Lecture Theatre 2, Life Sciences Building:

Multiscale, Superresolved, Ultrasensitive Optical Molecular Imaging

by Professor Shimon Weiss, UCLA

Feeding students

That’s it, I am no more a BBSRC Fellow, instead, call me a Lecturer. In addition to research, I have to feed knowledge to hungry students: with this change of title comes an increase in the amount of teaching I have the pleasure to do (and the students have the pleasure to endure).

In Biol 135, the lecture on linear function (delivered to a few hundreds students in a big lecture theatre) was constructed around the example of apes climbing 15 metres of a tree for each bananas (a great idea; not mine). On the way to the lecture, I stopped to buy a couple of bananas and finished the lecture with a challenge about the definition of functions. The prize for the winners were, of course, the bananas.

Je sers la science et c’est ma joie

This is Leonard’s disciple motto, and it is also the title of this major piece of art (designed and painted by Paul Picard, my grand-dad) which has now found its home in my office.

Challenge: how many of the characters on the frame can you identify (answer in the comments box please)?

A higher resolution version here.

The case of Dr Hicheur

Nature has an editorial on the case of this French-Algerian scientist who has been in jail for nearly two years in France under charges of terrorism.

Hicheur’s work at CERN, Europe’s premier high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland, certainly made for some good headlines — “Nuclear terror suspect is top physicist”, for example. And, at this stage, Nature is in no position to judge his innocence or guilt, which is a question for the French judicial system.

Nonetheless, Hicheur’s case deserves attention because to have held him in custody for so long, although legal under France’s tough anti-terror laws, seems a clear abuse of human rights.

Read it all here.

There is also an international support committee and a petition (in French, letter to the Justice minister asking for his freedom until trial takes place).