seminar

9th of May is Open Access day at the IIB

I am delighted to announce that we will have two external speakers on the 9th of May:

Stephen Curry, Open Access for Academics – the problems and the potential

Michelle Brook,  The cost of academic publishing

 

The talks will take place from noon in LT2, Biological Sciences building. They will be followed by sandwiches and discussions in the common room. University Librarian Phil Sykes will join us too (see him talking about open access here).
At 2 pm, IIB academics will also be invited to a University of Liverpool open access roadshow (SR6). See below for details.

Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry is Professor of structural biology at Imperial College London. He is an open access advocate. He blogs at the Reciprocal Space and at the Guardian. You can find him on Twitter@Stephen_Curry.

Michelle

Michelle Brook

Michelle Brook blogs at Quantumplations and works with the Open Knowledge Foundation where she recently published a blog about the cost of academic publishing. You can find her on Twitter @MLBrook.

 

 

* University of Liverpool Open Access roadshow

Presentations from the library (Martin Wolf) and Research Policy (Jane Rees) will explain current funder requirements for OA, and explain how the new institutional repository can help make your publications OA compliant. In addition, we will be high-lighting some of the issues to be considered in developing an Institutional Policy on Open Access. There will be time for questions during the session.

Nanoparticle Enhanced Radiotherapy: A vision for future cancer care

That’s the title of our first 2014 Institute of Integrative Biology seminar; Monday 6th January, 1 pm in LT2.

The speaker is Dr Fred Currell from Queen’s University Belfast. I met Fred for the first time at the Bionano Symposium at the E-MRS spring conference in Strasbourg.

Let me know if you would like to meet the speaker on Monday afternoon.

Protein Cages as Theranostic Agent Carriers, Sierin Lim

Please contact me if you would like to meet the speaker

 

Wednesday 6th February, School of Biological Sciences, SR6, 1 pm

Sierin Lim

Division of Bioengineering, School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Nanyang Technological University, 70 Nanyang Drive, Block N1.3, Singapore 637457, SLim@ntu.edu.sg

 

Abstract — Protein cages can be engineered to tailor its function as carriers for therapeutic and diagnostic agents. They are formed by self-assembly of multiple subunits forming hollow spherical cage structures of nanometer size. Due to their proteinaceous nature, the protein cages allow facile modifications on its internal and external surfaces, as well as the subunit interfaces. Modifications on the internal and the external surfaces allow conjugation of small molecule drugs or contrast agent and targeting ligands, respectively. The subunit interaction is of special interest in engineering controlled release property onto the protein cage. Two protein cages, E2 protein and ferritin, are described.

 

Biodata

Sierin Lim obtained both her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, respectively. She joined Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as Assistant Professor at the end of July 2007 after a 2.5-year postdoctoral research at University of California, Irvine (UCI). She was the Singapore recipient of the 2012 Asia Pacific Research Networking Fellowship from the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Dr. Lim’s research focuses on the design, engineering, and development of hybrid nano/microscale devices from biological parts by utilizing protein engineering as a tool. In particular, she is interested in self-assembling protein-derived nanocapsules and photosynthetic biological materials. The project scopes range from understanding the self-assembly mechanism of the nanocapsules and engineering theranostic carriers to the improvement of electron transfer efficiency in a photosynthetic electrochemical cell.

November bionano meeting

Monday 22nd of November, SR1 in the School of Biological Sciences,

Rachel Williams will talk about:

Surface modification to control cellular response in the treatment of vision loss

After that, in the context of the reorganization of the University, we will be holding an informal discussion about institutional (and self-organized) support for interdisciplinary actions in the area of nanoscience – this would include discussion of the future of LINSET and/or the need to bid for a new network more in line with the new structures. You are more than welcome to share your thoughts on this in the comment section of this blog.

Please help advertise the meeting by forwarding to any relevant people, group members, etc, – poster available for download (pdf) Poster22-Nov-10;

And I am always looking for new volunteers to speak – just drop me an email to volunteer or suggest someone…