NCMH 

Recent Research Highlights

• Our extensive work in developing hydrodynamic and thermodynamic methodology for modelling the shapes and conformations of macromolecules in solution using “whole body” approaches is extensively featured in Biophysical and Biochemical Text Books such as the Cambridge University Press books Methods in Molecular Biophysics (CUP 2007) and Wilson and Walker's Principles and Techniques of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (CUP 2018).
• The nature and stability of glycoconjugate vaccines (view paper 1 &  paper 2 and this 2020 review just published).
• An important advance involving the hydrogen producing microbe Rhodobacter spheroides (view paper).
• Elucidation of the hydrodynamics of microbial resistance mechanisms: the first demonstration that vancomycin is able to bind to the VanS protein in the glycopeptide resistance pathway (view paper 1 & paper 2) and this first (2020) demonstration of mucin-vancomycin interactions. See also this review, and this recent (2020) TV broadcast in the East Midlands.
• Development of improved methods of getting molecular weights (view paper) molecular weight distributions (view paper), conformation (view paper) and interactions (view paper) of macromolecules in solution.
• The discovery of sugars that behave like proteins (published in Angewandte Chemie and Scientific Reports & reported in Chemistry World)
• The NCMH contributed the hydrodynamics to Nottingham’s elucidation of the genetics of fruit ripening (view 2016  Nature Biotechnology article).
• Finding natural polymer consolidants to save alum treated Oseberg Viking ship artefacts – Norways National Treasure - from disintegration (view paper 1 & paper 2). This also impacts on the Mary Rose and the Meols Boat - see this 2020 clip from BBC's Our Coast.
• Re-analysis of the 1948 Creeth 2-chain model for DNA (view paper).

Postgraduate Opportunities:  Master of Research and PhD

The NCMH offers the following Postgraduate Masters Course (1 year full time, 2-4 years part time), and is run jointly with the Business School and School of Chemistry:

MRes in Biomolecular Technology (BiomolTech)  (1 year full time; 2-4 years part time)

Next intake: September 2023

MRes BiomolTech is ideal for

• students who have or are about to graduate who want to pursue research in Industrially relevant areas in the fields of Biopharma/Health Care, Healthy Foods, Bioarchaeology and Business aspects/ Entrepreneurship and other related areas
• those currently working in Industry wishing to obtain a Masters qualification whilst working in a company’s own laboratories

The Course consists of 60 credits of assessed Taught modules, supplemented by research tutorials and 120 credits assessed Research. It is taught in conjunction with leading Biopharma / Healthcare & Food Companies such as: Astra Zeneca, Arecor, Sanofi, GSK, Upperton Laboratories, Britvic, and Institutes such as the National Institute for Biological Standards & SciCult Lab (Science for Culture) at Oslo. It has been nominated for accreditation by the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

The top student on the MRes in Biomolecuar Technology is awarded the Beckman-Coulter Prize and all students gaining an overall 70% or more each obtain the Wyatt Technology UK Prize.

Course schedule

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Course flyer

Course Prospectus (2022-23)

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The BiomolTech MRes is a development from the previous highly successful MSc Courses Applied Biopharmaceutical Biotechnology and Entrepreneurship (ABBE) and Applied Biomolecular Technology (ABT) with nearly 1000 students trained, and the former MRes in Industrial Physical Biochemistry (IPB).  We thank all those students for all their hard work and support.

People

Staff 

• Prof. Stephen Harding: Professor of Applied Biochemistry & Director of the NCMH
• Dr. Vlad Dinu: Lecturer & Deputy Director of the NCMH
• Dr. Jacob Pattem: BBSRC postdoctoral Research Fellow
• Dr. Jianhua Jia: Course Tutor (MRes Biomolecular Technology)

• Honorary Professors: Prof. Bernardo Perez-Ramirez (Sanofi, Massachusetts); Prof. Tejash Shah (GSK Stevenage); Prof. Nicholas Darton (Astra-Zeneca, Cambridge); Prof. Jan Jezek (Arecor, Cambridge); Prof. Cleanthes Israilides (NAGREF, Athens)
• Honorary Associate Professors: Dr. Mary Phillips-Jones (Microbial Biophysics);  Dr. Tony Corfield (Glycobiology); Dr. Immo Fiebrig (Green therapies);  Linda Bellekom-Allen (Cellulose Biotechnology); Karen Coombes (Drug Delivery Technology)
• International Associates: Prof. Dr. Samil Kok (Baib University, Turkey); Prof. Fatang Jiang (Hubei University of Technology, China)

PhD students

• Xinxin Li (Vice-Chancellor Scholar): Hydrodynamic and Rheological properties of polysaccharide – submaxillary mucin complexes (joint with Prof. Bettina Wolf, University of Birmingham)
• Michelle Cutajar (EPSRC CDT): Bioinspired consolidants for Archaeological wood (Joint with Prof. Rob Stockman)
• Thomas MacCalman (GSK Vaccines): Glycovaccines 
• Yudong Lu (Chinese Scholar): Glycans in Food and Health 
• Taewoo Chun (Japanese Scholar): Ocular bacterial signalling, interactions and biofilms
• Congratulations to recently graduated (April 2020) Dr. Jennifer Wakefiled & Dr. Arthur Gadon 

Some Earlier Research Highlights

• Development of the COVOL program with Dame Janet Thornton FRS for predicting/allowing for non-ideality based on protein shape (view paper 1, paper 2 and view original Rallison-Harding paper)
• Development of an algorithm for analysing mucins and other complex polydisperse and non-ideal systems using sedimentation equilibrium in the analytical ultracentrifuge (view paper) 
• Development of triaxial ellipsoids as hydrodynamic models for proteins in solution using ‘hydration independent’ shape functions (view paper) and the ELLIPS suite of algorithms (view paper)
• Development of SOLPRO algorithm with Prof J. Garcia de la Torre for the bead modelling of complex proteins in solution using ‘hydration independent’ shape functions (view paper and recent review)
• Development of a combined SEC-sedimentation equilibrium method for polymer molecular weight distribution analysis (view paper 1, paper 2, paper 3)
• Development with Dr A.J. Rowe of off-line automatic data capture of analytical ultracentrifuge patterns (view paper)
• Development with Dr J.M. Creeth of a simple test for macromolecular heterogeneity in a single sedimentation equilibrium experiment (view paper) and the MSTAR method for sedimentation equilibrium analysis of polymer molecular weights (view paper)
• Development and first demonstration of the principle of co-sedimentation in the analytical ultracentrifugation for ligand-macromolecule interactions (view paper 1, paper 2,  paper 3 & a more recent review)
• First demonstration of a protein which forms trimers – chloramphenicol transacetylase (view paper), and a further demonstration (view paper)
• First demonstration with Prof Dennis Burton of a cusp shape conformation for the antibody IgE (view paper and book chapter)
• First demonstration of how pegylation can screen antibodies (view paper)
• First demonstration of how processing and point mutations can affect the conformation of monoclonal antibodies (view paper)
• First application of dynamic light scattering with analytical ultracentrifugation to elucidate the after-process integrity of monoclonal antibodies (view paper)
• First demonstration of a weak association in carbohydrate polymers (view paper)
• First SEC-MALS elucidation of the molecular weight distribution of polysaccharides (view paper) and mucins (view paper)
• First application of dynamic light scattering to bacterial spores (view paper) and demonstration of resistance to disinfectants (view paper)
• Development with Dr Paley Johnson of the theory for the concentration dependence of hydrodynamic parameters (view paper), tested using TYMV (view paper) and a recent update with Prof Don Winzor and Dr David Scott for the concentration dependence of diffusion (view paper)
• Development of the technique of flotation equilibrium in the analytical ultracentrifuge (view paper)
• Development of the linear coil array model for the structure mucins (view paper 1,  paper 2 and review)
• Discovery of high levels of Viking genes in the population of coastal north-west England (view paper and book 1 and book 2)
• Development with Prof J. Garcia de la Torre of ‘Crystallohydrodynamics’: combination of x-ray crystallography with hydrodynamics to elucidate the domain orientation of antibodies (view paper 1, paper 2)
• Resolution of an important discrepancy with a theory relating viscosity determination with molecular shape (view paper and review)

Comprehensive list (>520) of publications from the NCMH (Google Scholar) and links (Research Gate)