News

We are looking for talented PhDs that want to work in these areas:

• If you are interested in how we can use polymers to engineer biofilms for biotechnology, check here. Joint PhD with Tim Overton in Chemical Engineering
• Alternatively, we are looking for someone interested in peptide chemistry, nanotechnology and drug delivery. Details here. Joint PhD with Jason Zhang and Kostas Gkatzionis in Chemical Engineering
• If you want to explore high-throughput screening approaches to the discovery of novel transfection agents, please check here. Joint PhD with Robin May and Sara Jabbari
• We are also looking for someone interested in sensing and microbiology. Joint PhD with Paramaconi Rodriguez. More details here.

These opportunities are part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership. Deadline for application is 8th of January. Contact Paco if you want further details.

We are currently recruiting PhD candidates to work at the interface between Chemistry and Biology. Check the available projects below:

• Improving the performance of bacteriocins as natural food additives through the use of nanotechnology. Further details here.
• Affordable ligand-based electrochemical detection of bacterial toxins. Further details here.
• Nucleating the growth of biofilms for biocatalysis with polymer chemistry. Further details here.

These opportunities are part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership. Deadline for application is 8th of January. Contact Paco if you want further details.

Over the last two days, the School of Chemistry at Birmingham celebrated its Annual Post-graduate Symposium. As in previous editions, 2nd and 3rd year PhD students were able to showcase their results and discuss them with their peers and members of staff in the School. The group contributed this year with two oral presentations from Nacho and Daniel. Also, Menisha participated by chairing one of the sessions. Overall, two great days of science, ended with PhD students selecting Nacho’s presentation on enzyme-responsive particles for antimicrobial delivery as their favourite presentation. Well done!

Nacho presenting antibiotic resistance challenge

You can find more details about the event on the School of Chemistry twitter timeline.

Nacho attended last Friday, the 24th of June, the Supramolecular Symposium at the University of Southampton, organised by Jon Kitchen and Steve Goldup. Nacho presented his work on enzyme-responsive PIC particles. The organisers recognised the quality of Nacho’s work and awarded him with the Nature Chemistry prize to the best oral presentation. Well done Nacho!

Nacho and Andy have written a nice review on polyion complex (PIC) particles, their preparation and biomedical applications. The review is now available from the European Polymer Journal.Well done!

Last week, some of the members of the group attended the 6th Chemical Nanoscience Symposium Newcastle. Daniel Crisan, 3rd year PhD working on reactive polymeric scaffolds for biomedical applications, won one of the poster prizes for his work on poly(hydrazide)s and gene delivery. This work has been done in collaboration with Javier Montenegro, from CIQUS at the Universidade of Santiago de Compostela. Well done Daniel!

Yesterday, Prof David Leigh from the University of Manchester gave the 2016 Haworth Lecture at the School of chemistry. As part of the event, Paco gave a presentation on Nacho‘s work on enzyme-responsive materials. Overall, it was great day of science.

Being held in Birmingham, the event ended with a discussion over a curry.

We are recruiting PhD students to work on any of our research areas of interest:

• Stimuli-responsive nanomaterials as imaging probes to detect microbial pathogens.
• Nanomaterials to interfere with ‘non-conventional’ targets of bacterial infection such as adhesion, quorum sensing or bacterial membranes.
• Functional nanomaterials for the delivery of conventional antibiotics in a targeted way.

These PhD studentships are funded through the MIBTP (Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership). This is a 1 year Masters, followed by 3 Year PhD programme and each year (stipend and fees) is fully funded.  The MIBTP is a highly competitive and prestigious PhD programme and early application is essential. Deadline for application is 10th of January 2016.

If you want more information on the projects available just check our vacancies page.

Emma, our joint PhD student with Cameron Alexander (Nottingham) and Eduardo Fernandez-Megia (Santiago), has won another poster for her work on dendrimers to target microbial adhesion and Quorum Sensing. Well done.