House of Commons poster presentation for ISTM's Mathew Dunn

Mathew Dunn (above) will be presenting to MPs on 7 March Matthew Dunn, an EPSRC funded PhD student in the CDT for Regenerative Medicine, will be presenting his work  to Members of Parliament and a panel of expert judges on 7 March as part of the SET for Britain competition in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences area. SET for BRITAIN aims to encourage, support and promote Britain's early-stage and early-career research scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians who are an essential part of continuing progress in and development of UK research and R&D.

The competition currently attracts around 500 entrants, of whom only 35% are selected to present their work in Parliament. Matthew's poster will be judged against dozens of other scientists' research in the only national competition of its kind. The work, with Dr Paul Roach and Professor Rosemary Fricker, is a neuroscience project concerning the development of an in vitro model of the basal ganglia. Essentially the basal ganglia is the area of the brain that, when damaged, can be responsible for Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, and so there is a lot of focus on developing any models that can be used to gather information about the basal ganglia, in order to learn more about how these diseases are caused, and how they can be prevented. SET for BRITAIN Awards are made on the basis of the very best research work and results by an early-stage or early-career researcher together with their ability to communicate their work to a lay audience. Judged by leading academics, the gold medalist receives £3,000, while silver and bronze receive £2,000 and £1,000 respectively.

Wellcome Seed Award in Science for pharmacology research

Dr Ruoli ("Ronnie") Chen has been awarded nearly £90,000 for an 18-month project on "Pharmacological accumulation of hypoxia inducible factors for neuroprotection in cerebral ischaemia". 

The grant comes from the Seed Awards in Science, a recent initiative of the Wellcome Trust and only the second such grant to Keele. Ronnie will use his recently established and equipped laboratory including cell culture facilities, a hypoxia chamber and real time PCR, supported by ISTM, Pharmacy and his MRC Centenary Award two years ago. 

ISTM's Dr Ruoli "Ronnie" Chen

Ronnie Chen has two key collaborators for the project. Professor Rosemary Fricker, in ISTM and her facilities in the Harvey lab, and Professor Christopher Schofield, Head of Organic Chemistry at Oxford University. Ronnie moved to Keele in June 2011 from the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford, having previously held posts at the Wellcome Trust Human Genetic Centre at Oxford, and at Kings College London, and he has continued links with teams at those institutions.

Biomedical Engineering: a personal perspective

Writen by Dr Dimitra Blana

What exactly is Biomedical Engineering?    ...I didn’t know either.

When I was at school, I decided that I wanted to cure paralysis, as a result of reading about Christopher Reeve and, well, being a teenager. At the time I thought that the only way to do this was by being a medical doctor. Unfortunately, working with syringes did not really appeal to me: I liked computers and video games. I decided to abandon my dreams of medical breakthroughs and study Computer Engineering.

A couple of years into my degree I came across a discipline I had never heard of: Biomedical Engineering. This is the application of engineering principles to medicine. It is a very wide field that includes any technological advance that aims to improve human health, such as new materials, implants, prosthetics, drugs, imaging equipment, and, excitingly, computer software.

This was a light-bulb moment for me. Following a Masters and PhD in Biomedical Engineering, I now use computer models to help people move again after spinal cord injury or stroke.

At Keele University, we have two medical engineering Masters courses that run side by side: Biomedical Engineering and Cell and Tissue Engineering - the second is an exciting area of Biomedical Engineering focusing on advances at the cellular level.

Our Masters in Biomedical Engineering was recently accredited by the Institute for Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM). The accreditation recognises that our programme has a suitable learning environment for students and meets strict educational standards.

Ed Chadwick (Biomedical Engineering course lead, right) and Paul Roach 
(Cell and Tissue Engineering course lead) with the accreditation certificate.

If you are interested in developing or applying technological solutions to healthcare problems, consider applying to our MSc in Biomedical Engineering or Cell and Tissue Engineering. Get in touch with the course directors (Ed and Paul) or administrator (Hildegarde) to find out more.

ISTM hosts collaborators from Switzerland

Left to Right: Professor Mauro Alini, Professor Alicia El Haj & Professor Martin Stoddart

Members of ISTM gathered at the Guy Hilton Research Centre on Thursday last week to hear presentations from two key collaborators who work at the AO Foundation Research Institute at Davos, Switzerland.

Professor Martin Stoddart, Principal Scientist at the AO Institute, spoke on monitoring stem cell fate with "Smartflare", a new technique using to observe mRNA expression of two genes in individual live cells using fluorescent probes.

Professor Mauro Alini, Head of Musculoskeletal Regeneration at the AO Institute, talked about stem cells for intervertebral disc regeneration, which was of particular interest to ISTM members working in that area based at RJAH Hospital in Oswestry.The extended visit gave an opportunity for discussions with staff and research students from all ISTM's three major sites.

€2.4 million ERC Consolidator Research Grant

Professor Melissa Mather, ERC Consolidator Grant Fellow Professor Melissa Mather, Research Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, has won a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Research Grant worth €2.4 million (£1.6 million). This award will provide five years of funding for her project entitled "TransPhorm - Single molecule imaging of transmembrane protein structure and function in their native state".

This project aims to pioneer new technology to enable the proteins found in the membrane of cells responsible for the regulation of cell function and communication to be studied in their natural environment with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. An understanding of these proteins, called ion channels, is of immense importance to obtain new insight into numerous physiological processes including electrical signalling in the heart and nervous system, hormone secretion, the role of nutrient transporters in cancer growth, endocytosis and gene expression. This work will help to reveal how the dysfunction of these proteins leads to disease and downstream will accelerate drug discovery as ion channel modulators represent an extremely important class of pharmaceuticals.

Selection for the ERC Consolidator Grant Mel has been awarded involves an interview at the ERC headquarters in Brussels and is highly competitive, with only a small percentage of the 2051 applications received being granted. This scheme offers mid-career researchers funding to develop their most innovative ideas, autonomy and prestige and was established by the ERC with the overall aim of developing a new generation of top researchers in Europe, who are competitive at a global level.

Mel, pictured above with the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Trevor McMillan and Professor David Amigoni, Pro VC for Research and Enterprise, is Keele's Professor of Biomedical Imaging and will also now use the title "ERC Consolidator Grant Fellow". She moved to Keele in August 2015 from Nottingham University where she was the Faculty of Engineering lead and Deputy Director at Nottingham's Institute of Biophysics. She brought with her the remaining year of her EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship which started in 2011 and has been extended to March 2017. That EPSRC fellowship aims to develop a new class of ultrasonic transducer based on self-assembling liposomes, capable for use as a new medical imaging modality. Professor Alicia El Haj, Director of ISTM, said: "Melissa's appointment to Keele and her successful award of an ERC fellowship places Keele among the major international research centres in this field. This programme will expand our efforts within ISTM to translate cutting edge science into novel medical technologies that will benefit the diagnosis and treatment of patients in the next decade." Mel pictured with Vice-Chancellor, Professor Trevor McMillan (left) & Professor David Amigoni, Pro VC for Research and Enterprise (right),

ISTM's 2016 Professorial Promotions

ISTM is proud to announce that the University's Professorial and Readership Promotions Committee has made the following professorial promotions...

Josep Sulé-Suso graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Barcelona before training in Clinical Oncology in North Staffordshire. After a spell at the National Cancer Institute in Milan working on cancer immunotherapy and gene therapy, he returned in 1995 to work as a clinical oncologist at UHNM in parallel with carrying out basic and translational research in ISTM, for which he we awarded a PhD. Josep is currently the Theme Lead for Diagnostic Engineering and Proteomics in ISTM.

His research combines patient-based and fundamental laboratory research with a particular focus on early diagnosis of cancer using spectrometry and spectroscopy techniques. He was involved in the development of one of the beamlines at Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire (one of the major research facilities in the UK) and is a founding member of the International Society for Clinical Spectroscopy. Josep is presently working on the early diagnosis of lung cancer through the analysis of volatiles in human breath. He has also recently been involved in the creation of a Masters in Medical Science Course in Oncology aimed at integrating clinical activities with basic research in oncology.

Ying Yang obtained a PhD from Manchester University and received her postdoctoral training at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Her core interest is in using biomaterials and culture environments as tools to understand and explore mechanisms of cell differentiation and tissue formation in regenerative medicine. Her major contributions have been in the field of design and construction of novel materials and coatings for use in engineering and 3D tissue models.

Ying's background in materials science and engineering underpin her ability to facilitate cross-disciplinary research in a range of disease-orientated projects with clinicians and bio-imaging projects with physicists. She has an enviable record having been awarded over £2 million in external funding from research councils, charities and the EU commission during her time at Keele and publishing in excess of 100 peer-reviewed papers (h-index 23) together with numerous book chapters and reviews. Ying has also made a significant contribution to postgraduate training within ISTM including development of a unique Masters programme. She was instrumental in implementing the 3+1+1 joint education programme with Guangzhou University. 

Rosemary Fricker was appointed at Keele in 2005 as a Research Scientist in ISTM and Lecturer in the new Medical School. Her research focuses on developing stem cell therapies for the treatment of the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's (PD) and Huntington's diseases (HD). Her team work in two key areas (i) role of vitamins in the conversion of stem cells to neurons and their survival and (ii) engineering functional brain circuitry in vitro to model PD and HD.

Nick Forsyth joined Keele in 2007 as a Lecturer in Stem Cell Biology following postdoctoral research studies at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas, USA and the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. Originally trained as a cancer biologist at the CRUK Beatson Institute of Cancer Research, Nick became interested in the mechanisms of cell mortality and aging, which led to work in stem cell biology and the accompanying fields of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

He has an acknowledged international standing in the field and an identifiable niche as a global expert in hypoxic stem cell biology, including the design and engineering of innovative systems to facilitate controlled hypoxic experimentation. Within Keele, Nick acts as Associate Director, Research Theme Lead (Bioengineering and Regenerative Medicine), and Internationalisation Director for ISTM, sits on Senate and serves as Biological Safety Officer. He has a highly cited research portfolio and a funding portfolio that amounts to £2 million as PI as well as levering a further £15 million of associated funding through multi-centre collaborations.

Double success for Regenerative Medicine partners

Two members of the Research Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine have received new grants through Keele’s partnership in the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine.

Dr Yvonne Reinwald (Left) & Dr Ying Yang (Right)

Dr Ying Yang has been awarded £29,999 fund for her project on Development of a novel assay to predict stemness potency and osteogenic potential in the bone marrow derived stem cells of individual donors. This project is investigating a facile technique to offer information for better cell-therapy.

Dr Yvonne Reinwald together with Prof Alicia El Haj, Dr Ying Yang, and Dr Pierre Bagnaninchi at Edinburgh University received £35,999 for a project of Online monitoring of mechanical properties of three-dimensional tissue engineered constructs for quality assessment. This project aims to develop a new real-time and non-destructive modality for living objectives before for clinical application.

The EPSRC Centre is a long-term collaboration between Loughborough, Keele and Nottingham universities, and a set of hospital and industrial partners in the Midlands. It has supported a range of cutting-edge research and training projects over the last five years.