Super Spider Silk Scaffolds
The Thomas group collaborating with Dr Sara Goodacre’s SpiderLab in Life Sciences at Nottingham have produced recombinant spider silk with un-natural amino acids that can easily be modified using ‘click’ reactions to give new biomaterials with anti-bacterial properties.
As spider silk has been shown to be well tolerated by mammalian cells and also possess high tensile strength, elasticity and flexibility it provides an ideal scaffold for a range of healthcare applications.
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Combating Campylobacter jejuni infections in poultry farming
The Soultanas group working with collaborators in Life Sciences and industrial partners Banham Poultry and Akeso Biomedical have demonstrated that Q-PLEXTM / TYPLEX (Iron complex) food additives have potent anti-bacterial activity as they prevent the bacteria, Campylobacter jejuni binding to the chicken’s GI tract and causing subsequent infection.
Recent publications
Mechanism of intersubunit ketosynthase-dehydratase interaction in polyketide synthases,
Jenner, Matthew; Kosol, Simone; Griffiths, Daniel; Prasongpholchai, Panward; Manzi, Lucio; Barrow, Andrew S.; Moses, John E.; Oldham, Neil J.; Lewandowski, Jozef R.; Challis, Gregory L.,
Nature Chemical Biology (2018), 14(3), 270-275.
Examining the role of protein structural dynamics in drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
Shaw, Daniel J.; Hill, Rachel E.; Simpson, Niall; Husseini, Fouad S.; Robb, Kirsty; Greetham, Gregory M.; Towrie, Michael; Parker, Anthony W.; Robinson, David; Hirst, Jonathan D.; Hoskisson, Paul A.; Hunt, Neil T. Chemical Science (2017), 8(12), 8384-8399.
Continuous flow biocatalysis: production and in-line purification of amines by immobilised transaminase from Halomonas elongata,
Planchestainer, Matteo; Contente, Martina L.; Cassidy, Jennifer; Molinari, Francesco; Tamborini, Lucia; Paradisi, Francesca,
Green Chem (2017), 19(2), 372
Antibiotic Spider Silk: Site-Specific Functionalization of Recombinant Spider Silk Using "Click" Chemistry, Harvey, David; Bardelang, Philip; Goodacre, Sara L.; Cockayne, Alan; Thomas, Neil R.
Advanced Materials (Weinheim, Germany) (2017), 29(10), 1604245
Total synthesis of the post-translationally modified polyazole peptide antibiotic Goadsporin,
Dexter, Hannah L.; Williams, Huw E. L.; Lewis, William; Moody, Christopher J.
Angewandte Chemie, International Edition (2017), 56(11), 3069-3073
ALS-FTLD associated mutations of SQSTM1 impact on Keap1-Nrf2 signalling
Goode, Alice; Rea, Sarah; Sultana, Melanie; Shaw, Barry; Searle, Mark S.; Layfield, Robert,
Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience (2016),
76, 52-58.