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The Pitt and Stewart labs would like to say a big congratulations to Dr Gavin Robertson and Dr Amelie Sobczak on their graduation, and would also like to say a big thank you to the BHF for funding these students. #Ever to Excel

Dr Alan Stewart, Dr Swati Arya and Dr Peter Caie have been awarded a £89,415 grant from Tenovus Scotland for a new project entitled “Assessment of the predictive value of plasma proteins in oesophageal adenocarcinoma treatment”. The funding will support a PhD studentship due to start later in the year. Applications are now open to candidates who are interested in applying for this studentship. They must hold a first or upper-second class degree (and/or an MSc/MRes degree) in Molecular & Cellular Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry (Analytical) or a related subject from a recognised academic institution. Full details are available here.

Dr Alan Stewart has been appointed to the editorial board of the journal, Scientific Reports – an online open access “mega journal” from the publishers of Nature. The journal publishes scientifically valid primary research from all areas of the natural and clinical sciences. Alan will serve on the journal’s Chemical Biology board.

Dr Samantha Pitt has been elected as a board member of the International Society for Zinc Biology (http://iszb.org/). She will serve the Society for 2 years. She is very excited to contribute towards the future direction of the Society and will work to raise  the  awareness  of  the scientific  community  regarding  the  importance  of  zinc  in  health  and  disease.

The Metal Ions in Medicine group would like to say a big congratulations to (Dr) Amelie Sobczak on passing her PhD viva!!

The Metal Ions in Medicine group would like to say a big congratulations to Gavin Robertson on passing his PhD viva.

Dr Alan Stewart represented the Metal Ions in Medicine team at the Obesity and Diabetes Conference in Rome held between 25th-26th Februray 2019. Whilst there he gave a keynote talk titled “Influence of free fatty acids on plasma zinc handling by albumin: Impact on coagulation in diabetes”. As an organising committe member he would like to thank all who attended and presented during the meeting.

Dendritic cells are key immune cells that respond to pathogens and co-ordinate many innate and adaptive immune responses. Dr Swati Arya and Dr Dagmara Wiatrek-Moumoulidis from the Stewart group, together with Dr Simon Powis and researchers from the Mass Spectrometry team in St Andrews (led Dr Sally Shirran) have used SWATH-MS to quantitively measure proteomic changes that occur in monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) following activation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). A moDC library of 4,666 proteins was generated and proteins were quantified at 0, 6 and 24 h post-LPS stimulation using SWATH-MS. Functional annotation of proteins exhibiting significant changes in expression between the various time points led to the identification of clusters of proteins implicated in distinct cellular processes including interferon and interleukin signalling, endocytosis, the ER-phagosome pathway and antigen-presentation. This study provides new detailed insight into the global proteomic changes that occur in moDCs during antigen processing and presentation and further demonstrate the potential of SWATH-MS for the quantitative study of proteins involved in cellular processes. This work will be published in the online open-access journal, Scientific Reports.

The Metal Ions in Medicine team  attended the 2019 Zinc-net meeting in Cambridge, UK. This International meeting focused on investigating the role of zinc in biological systems. Dr Samantha Pitt gave the opening plenary lecture. The title of her talk was “Altered Zn²⁺ homeostasis in Niemann-Pick C1 disease results in impaired NAADP-mediated lysosomal Ca²⁺-dynamics”. Dr Alan Stewart gave a talk titled “Influence of free fatty acids on plasma zinc handling by albumin: Impact on coagulation in type II diabetes”. Gavin Robertson (BHF funded PhD student in the Pitt lab) presented a poster titled “Mitsugumin 23: a cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca²⁺ leak channel that displays Zn²⁺ permeability”.

The team would like to thank Dr Nick Pugh (Anglia Ruskin University) for organising this meeting.

On 26th November Dr Alan Stewart attended a networking dinner at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh to help launch a new charity focused on developing a cure for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a debilitating eye disease that affects millions of people worldwide. In the UK alone there are more than 685,000 people with significant sight loss as a consequence of late-stage AMD. The new charity has been founded by four leading site loss charities, Blind Veterans UK, Fight for Sight, the Macular Society and Scottish War Blinded.