Researchers, coordinated by a Brighton scientist, have been working on the development of a potentially life-saving treatment for one of the most malignant and aggressive brain tumours.
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) accounts for half of all brain tumours and has a high recurrence rate, usually resulting in aggressive surgery plus chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
A new online learning resource offering quizzes, theory and visual information is enhancing students’ learning efficiency at the University of Brighton.
A study gave second-year pharmacy students access to the resource and compared results with traditional scripts given as preparation for laboratory classes.
Dr Bhavik Patel, Reader in Clinical and Bioanalytical Chemistry in the University’s Centre for Stress and Age-Related Diseases, said: “We found the online resource achieved significant success in improving students’ preparation, performance and confidence in practical classes. Read More
Two University of Brighton scientists are joining a pop-up stand in Brighton’s Churchill Square shopping centre on Friday (1 Feb) as part of events to mark next Monday’s (4 Feb) World Cancer Day.
Marta Falcinelli, PhD researcher in the University’s School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences (PABS), is passionate about fighting the disease and will be talking to members of the public at the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) event.
Marta joined the University’s Stress & Cancer group in 2016, fulfilling her ambition: “I have always been intrigued by science and at university I started to be very interested in molecular biology and scientific investigation, dreaming to perform experiments and work in a lab.
Researchers from Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), run jointly by the universities of Brighton and Sussex, have discovered a link between a virus and damage to cardiovascular tissue.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a very common virus similar to the herpes virus that causes cold sores and is generally considered harmless. The immune system usually controls the virus and most people don’t even realise they have it.
The work conducted under the supervision of Professor Florian Kern, Chair of Immunology at BSMS, shows that clinically relevant numbers of a specific type of immune cells only arise when infection with CMV is present. Read More
Early trials show stress-relieving medications may increase the efficacy of chemotherapy and by doing so, improve recovery. Managing stress and anxiety at an early stage, researchers say, could become routine.
Dr Melanie Flint
Dr Melanie Flint, Reader in Cancer Biology at the University of Brighton’s School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, has been studying the impact stress hormones have on patients, and the effect chronic psychological stress has on disease progression, as well as response to drug treatment. Dr Flint said: “Stress hormones are highly potent and can interact with almost every cell in the body including normal, cancer and immune cells.”
Her research has shown that DNA can be damaged as a result of the interaction between our cells and stress hormones, leading to cell transformation: “A diagnosis of breast cancer is a cause of a great deal of stress, which in itself, is a significant reason for stress management to be considered early on.”
Melanie is part of a team of scientists at the University of Brighton researching breast cancer. Dr Flint collaborates with Professor Dame Lesley Fallowfield, Professor of Psycho-Oncology, who will be speaking at the British Science Festival on the 5 September, in an event titled, ‘Risk and uncertainty in breast cancer treatment’.
Dr Val Jenkins, who works with Professor Dame Lesley Fallowfield said: “Combining the expertise of laboratory-based scientists with that of psycho-oncologists in an innovative area of research is likely to produce tangible benefits for patients receiving cancer treatments.”
Dr Flint works with women who have recovered from triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), accounting for roughly 20% of all breast cancers. She has found the period of most stress is different for each woman:
“Patients experience stress for a variety of reasons: through knowledge that they are high risk, enduring multiple biopsies, indirect stress of family members, as well as fear of pain, sickness and potential end of life. Some patients seek stress interventions such as exercise and positive reinforcement from medically-trained individuals.”
Each of the women Dr Flint worked with stated that stress was a major factor during their cancer history, and that they felt stress could play a role even in tumour progression and treatment.
Dr Flint said: “Determining the effects of stress on the efficacy of chemotherapy will have an impact on the potential utility of pharmacological interventions such as beta-blockers, or psychological interventions including mindfulness-based stress reduction, and on the correct time point for administration in the disease trajectory for greatest therapeutic effect.
“The research will impact patients and clinicians, through recognition that stress is a contributing factor for drug resistance in the treatment of breast cancer.”
The university’s Diabetes Research Group (DRB) featured on BBC South East’s Inside Out programme on 27 February.
Professor Adrian Bone, Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology and Head of the DRB, and his team explained cutting-edge research being undertaken at the university to improve treatment for a disease that, for Type 1 diabetes alone, affects 10,000 people in the South East.
To watch the programme go to the BBC’s iPlayer service and scan along to 17.40 mins.
Scientists at the University of Brighton have moved a step closer to understanding the underlying cause of age-related hearing loss which affects 11 million people in the UK.
Hearing loss is believed to originate in non-sensory cells in the cochlea, the auditory portion of the inner ear containing the organ which produces nerve impulses in response to sound.
The cells are coupled together by ‘gap junctions’ which are formed of two proteins called connexin 26 and connexin 30. It is mutations or failures in these proteins that cause most cases of hearing loss.
However, experiments by our Sensory Neuroscience Research Group have shown that one particular mutation in the connexion 30 protein actually prevents deafness to high-frequency sound.
Professor Ian Russell, Professor of Neurobiology here at university and a member of the group, said: “This was a great surprise: The mutation should have impaired the function of the cochlea, not aided it.”
He said: “Other members of the research team are now making direct measurements from these supporting cells to understand how the mutation changes the properties of the gap junctions. They should obtain measurements that will enable us to understand how the mutation alters the electrical and mechanical properties of the cochlea and eventually lead to our understanding how sensitivity is preserved in a cochlea that would otherwise be decimated by age-related-hearing-loss.”
The Sensory Neuroscience Research Group’s findings were published on 21 February in Nature Communication. Read More
Head down to the seafront between 1-4pm on Saturday 29 July and celebrate women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) with Soapbox Science.
Soapbox Science hosts events across the UK and the world raising the profile of women in science – breaking down barriers and challenging stereotypes about who a researcher is. And they are coming to Brighton for the first time this summer.
Chantal Nobs, a PhD student at the University of Brighton, was one of 12 women selected to participate in the Soapbox Science London event on London’s Southbank in 2016.
Find out more about the Brighton event here.
Our school are hosting a series of seminars on Fridays from 1-2pm in H400. Everyone is welcome so put the dates in your diaries.
Here’s what is coming up over in the next few weeks:
Friday 18 November
“e-learning apps: could they have an impact on student engagement and retention?”
presented by Dr George Olivier
Friday 25 November
“What we do not know about our hearing”
presented by Andrei Lukashkin
Friday 9 December
“Yeast: a versatile living test tube to screen drug targets and inhibitors”
presented by Dr Cathy Moore, Institute for Infection and Immunity
Scientists at the University of Brighton are working with a team in South Korea on research that could lead to the development of new antibiotics.
Just weeks after Prime Minister David Cameron called for a worldwide cut in the unnecessary use of antibiotics and rewards for drug companies which develop new medicines to fight drug-resistant superbugs, the scientists have been studying soil bacteria which, they say, have the genetic potential to “produce tens of thousands of novel antibiotics”.
The South Korean-led study has been supported by University of Brighton scientists Professor Colin Smith and Dr Giselda Bucca in the university’s College of Life, Health and Physical Sciences.
The scientists undertook a detailed study of the activity of genes that are responsible for antibiotic production in a soil bacterium called Streptomyces. These bacteria are the major producers of antibiotics that are used worldwide to treat infections. Their study reveals how the activity of the genes for antibiotic production are controlled in the particular species of bacterium they studied – Streptomyces coelicolor – and this new knowledge, they say “suggests new ways for scientists to increase production of known antibiotics and, perhaps more importantly, to discover new antibiotics”.
Professor Smith said: “There is a critical need for developing new antibiotics because of the global rise in antibiotic resistance. Soil bacteria such as Streptomyces have the genetic potential to produce tens of thousands of novel antibiotics. However, it can be very difficult to coax them to produce these antibiotics in detectable quantities under laboratory conditions.
“The results from our study suggest how we could manipulate these bacteria to switch on production of antibiotics. This could allow us to ‘awaken’ genetic pathways for antibiotics that are not usually active outside of their natural soil environment. This, in turn, could enable us to study their properties and to scale up their production in the laboratory if they look promising as new antibiotics.”
Professor Smith and Dr Bucca are now embarking on a proof-of-concept study with the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to establish whether the same genetic controls operate in other Streptomyces bacteria. Professor Smith said: “If they do then this will open up new possibilities for increasing production of clinically-important antibiotics.”
The research is published in Nature Communications, find out more here.
Professor Colin Smith
