Grant successes
Congratulations to Dr Guo-Liang (Leon) Lu who is the recipient of the HRC's 2022 NZ-China Biomedical Research Alliance fund for the 3 year project, Improving solid tumour lymphocyteinfi ltrati on using bioinspired nanosystem. This research initiative, which the HRC administers, is supported through the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment’s Catalyst Fund: Strategic. This programme supports the development of research collaborations between New Zealand researchers and Chinese colleagues. Professor William Denny and Associate Professor Jingyuan Wen will also be working on the project.
Leon’s application for a Catalyst: Leaders New Zealand-China Scientist Exchange Programme grant was also successful. The exchange is expected to start with the orientation ceremony in Beijing on 18 October, 2023.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Jeff Smaill who has received funding from the China Maurice Wilkins Centre Collaborative Research Programme for the 2 year project, Discovery of isoform-selective FGFR2/4 inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. Jeff and ACSRC colleague Associate Professor Adam Patterson will work on the project with Professor Xiaoyun Lu from Jinan University, Guangzhou and Professor Ke Ding, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai.
Dr Daniel Conole has received funding for the project, Phenotypic screening with covalent fragments to discover new modulators of neuroinflammation. Inflammation of the cells connecting the brain to the bloodstream plays a central role in the progression of various forms of currently incurable neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Therefore, we need to identify novel compounds that can inhibit this inflammation. A team at the Centre for Brain Research have established a state-of-the-art high-throughput screening facility that can measure the inhibitory effect of compounds on neuroinflammation. In this work, we aim to screen a special type of compound library to identify novel inhibitors of neuroinflammation and uncover their mechanism to reveal promising starting points for future neurodegenerative disease drugs.
New Students
We welcomed the following chemistry students to the ACSRC:
- Samantha Brown - supervisors: Moana Tercel and Paul Harris (Biological Sciences)
- Sophia Wilson - supervisors: Julie Spicer and Anna Giddens
- Jumana Nahhas - supervisor: Daniel Conole
New (and old) staff news
We welcomed back Kenneth Sue after a short stint in the lab before he passed his PhD exam. He then took a well-deserved break and is now back working at the ACSRC for Dr Moana Tercel on her projects.
On the bright side
Interesting news snippet - that wasn’t us by the way!
Stuff: Explosive substance was 'unwanted chemicals from laboratories,' medical building reopened
