On 16 March the ‘A* Scientist’ outreach team completed another successful hands-on science morning with Year 4 children (8-9 year-olds), and a tailor-made talented and gifted afternoon with Year 3 children (7-8 year-olds), at Bramber Primary School in Worthing. The A* Scientist team is made up of experienced and talented members of PaBS including Dr Angela Sheerin, Dr Anna Guildford, Dr Claire Marriott and Ms Bertie Berterelli. We also had a special guest from the BrightSTAR team, Ms Maria Verdenelli, who was disseminating principles from her PhD studies.

Thirty year 4 children enjoyed our specialist science program that included strawberry DNA extraction, cheek cell staining and the much-enjoyed organ assembly race against the clock. In the afternoon the team held a special talented and gifted session with the Year 3 children that saw the creation of our own pH indicator and volcano competitions with the principles of basic chemical reactions as part of the learning outcome. In parallel to this, Ms Verdenelli held an additional hands-on workshop for the Year 4 children to design new methods to mend heart conditions.

The A* Scientist outreach team was founded over four years ago and in this time we have seen upwards of 1,000 children. We have gained over £18,000 of funding (including Springboard, WPOOG and Compact Plus) which has enabled purchase of equipment, consumables and some salaries.

Fizzy drinks are about to get pricey… should you be swapping the sugar for honey anyway?! It’s hard to know what “healthy” means these days, but did you know even your gut bacteria has a role in weight-loss? Sound interesting? Then read on!

By Dr Claire Marriott, senior lecturer in human biology at Hastings, member of the Diabetes Research Group

Well done to Dr Caroline Garrett and her collie Fawkes (Wildsea Phoenix of Fire) who came first in the Heelwork to Music category at Crufts.

You can watch her performance on Youtube and read more about Caroline and Fawkes on the university news.

Dr Dipak Sarker (pictured left) and Prof John Smart (pictured right) will start a project based on a nicotine delivery device with a company called Smpl Innovations, based in Germany. The formulation and analysis research work will be undertaken in PaBS labs from March.

You can see the photos on the Pharmacy Society’s Facebook page.

The Royal Society has awarded the university £15,000 to research whether fish are being harmed by chemicals from skin care products that enter freshwater and marine systems.

The funding bid was led by Dr Neil Crooks, Senior Lecturer in marine ecology in PaBS (pictured), in collaboration with PaBS’ Dr Cressida Bowyer, Dr Angelo Pernetta, Assistant Director at Hastings Campus.

You can hear Dr Crooks talk about the research on BBC Sussex Drive on 7th March and read the full article on the university news.

Graham Sheridan, whose project entitled ‘Promoting neuroprotection and myelin repair: Novel therapeutic strategies to combat Multiple Sclerosis’, has received funding from the Royal Society.

Graham writes, “The primary focus of this project is to discover new regenerative treatments for Multiple Sclerosis (MS); a neuroinflammatory disorder characterised by demyelinating lesions of the central nervous system (CNS).

“Over 100,000 people in the UK and approximately 2.5 million people worldwide are diagnosed with MS. There is no cure and current anti-inflammatory immunomodulatory drugs only slow disease progression.

“In this project, we will test new drugs that could potentially prevent secondary progressive loss of neurons and promote remyelination of brain and spinal cord lesions.”

Well done to Graham for gaining funding for this important research in to MS.

Wendy Chandler and Scott Gunn, lab assistants in the Biological/Biomedical area of the School, have just started a course to obtain a formal qualification as Technicians. They both received distinctions for their first assignment submission. Well done Wendy and Scott!