3rd Annual Scientific Symposium

October 19–20th 2016, East Midlands Conference Centre

Thank you to everyone who attended our 3rd annual science meeting and contributed to its success. A pdf of the conference booklet is available here.

Congratulations to our prize-winners:
Poster prize first place: Tim Eyes (University of Manchester)
Poster prize second place: Ilokugbe Ettah (Lancaster University)
Poster prize third place: Ben Dolman (University of Manchester)
Early career talk prize: Sarah Hedberg (Imperial College London), pictured

Programme

Day 1
Keynote speaker – William Barton (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA) Over-expression of secreted proteins from mammalian cell lines

Posted on 24/05/2016 by BioProNET Network

2016 early career researcher event

BioProNET early career research event 2016
September 6–7^thBrighton Mercure Seafront Hotel

Many thanks to everyone who made this event a sucess!

The programme for the 2016 event reflected feedback from delegates at last year’s highly successful meeting; delegates said they wanted more time to focus on CVs, cover letters, being interviewed (and interviewing) and preparation for job applications, as well as presentation skills. The facilitators and presenters at this year’s event had considerable experience of recruiting for bioprocessing- and indistrial biotechnology-related careers.

We were pleased to welcome Martin Popplewell and his team from Coconut Communications to this event to deliver the media training sessions. Martin has more than 25 years of experience working in journalism, including at the BBC, Sky News and ITN.

In the media training session, delegated worked in small groups (6 people) with a trainer in a practical session where they prepared for an interview, were interviewed and then received a personal review and critic of their performance. They will have two interviews, allowing them to learn and improve, and they received receive a copy of their interviews and a booklet covering the theory of good media interviews.

Posted on 04/05/2016 by BioProNET Network

Overcoming Cellular Barriers: Implications for Industrial Biotechnology

Many thanks to everyone who attended this event; we hope that you found it useful and informative. A total of nine new project ideas were identified at the meeting, together with champions to take them forward. If you attanded the meeting and need further information on the projects and/or champions, please contact Charlotte

July 6th and 7th 2016, Birmingham Hilton Metropole

The function of membranes in bacterial, yeast and mammalian cell factories are an important but underappreciated parameter in optimizing recombinant protein quality and yields. In addition, the delivery of a therapeutic protein to its target often requires that protein to cross one or more membranes.

Three BBSRC NIBB — BioCatNet, BioProNET and CBMNet — are hosting a two day event to address the challenges of protein secretion and targeting in industrial biotechnology. Three themes form the backdrop of the meeting: Protein trafficking in eukaryotic cells, protein export from bacterial cell factories and delivery of therapeutic proteins to targets.

The meeting will identify how UK academic and industrial strengths can be exploited to enhance application to future challenges, by combining presentations from leading academics and industrialists to inform and stimulate facilitated discussions. The overall aim is to identify collaborative research projects and teams to bid for funding.

To register, please click here.

Wednesday 6^th July, 2016
10.30	Registration
11.00	Welcome, Objectives and Funding available – Me profiles	Network Directors
Session 1: Protein Trafficking in Eukaryotic Cells
11.15	How UCB are beginning to address protein trafficking both in-house and with external collaborators	Bernie Sweeney – UCB
11.30	Obtaining a molecular understanding of antibody secretion	Andrew Peden – University of Sheffield
Session 2: Protein Export from Bacterial Cell Factories
11.45	Project ‘PeriTune’ -Periplasmic export in e. coli	Cobra Biologics
12.00	The Tat pathway as a biotechnological tool for the expression and export of heterologous proteins in E. coli	Kelly Walker – University of Kent
Session 3: Delivering Therapeutic Proteins and other compounds substrates/drug molecules
12.15	Engineering therapeutic proteins for cell entry: the natural approach	Ron Jackson, MedImmune
12.30	Engineering biomimetic polymers for intracellular protein delivery	Rongjun Chen – Imperial College London
12.45	Review of presentations and scene-setting for discussions to follow
13.00 Lunch and networking
14.00 Parallel Discussions 1
Protein Trafficking	Protein Export from Bacterial Cell Factories	Delivering Therapeutic Proteins and other molecules
15.25	Report from 3 discussion sessions; definition of topics of interest; themes to be expanded for further development of projects in groups
16.05 Coffee and check-in
16.45 Parallel Discussions 2
Protein Trafficking	Protein Export from Bacterial Cell Factories	Delivering Therapeutic Proteins and other molecules
17.45	Groups to define initial project areas to develop and for participants to identify their interests for further involvement in day 2 project pitching
18.00	Close
18.30	Networking drinks
19.30	Dinner

Thursday 7th July, 2016
09.00 Technology Drivers
09.00	Imaging vesicle transport in cells	Gero Steinberg – University of Exeter
09.25	Molecular interactions in membranes and applications of solid state NMR	Boyan Bonev – University of Nottingham
09.50 Q & A
10.00 Project Pitching	Projects identified at end of day 1 – on pin boards; champion for each gives 5 minute pitch. Formalise interested parties and refine groups for discussions post-coffee break
10.45 Coffee
11.00 Break out Discussion Sessions within project groups
12.30 All Groups reconvene and share ideas – finalise groupings of individuals to carry planning on to next stage
13.00 Lunch
14.00 BIV writing session – on-the-spot applications
15.00 Close

Posted on 11/04/2016 by BioProNET Network

BioProNET Supports Synthetic Portabolomics Project

BioProNet is delighted to have supported Professor Natalio Krasnogor from the University of Newcastle in his successful grant application entitled ‘Synthetic Portabolomics: Leading the Way at the Crossroads of the Digital and the Bio Economies’. Natalio and his co-investigators were awarded a total of £8.1m of which £5.3M was from EPSRC, £2.5M was from the University of Newcastle and £0.4M was from industry collaborators.

Natalio’s work will be focused on a novel area of synthetic biology, called portabolomics. Currently, novel genetic circuits are designed for a single organism (such as E.coli); the circuit needs to be re-engineered for each new organism that is studied – a process which is time consuming and costly. Natalio and his multidisciplinary team aim to standardise the connection between a given genetic circuit and the chassis organism, by understanding the networks of molecular processes that occur in a cell. They will develop a set of academically and industrially useful organisms where the ‘plug-in’ points for the genetic circuit will be the same for each of the organisms, allowing the genetic circuit to be moved from one organism to another.

Natalio also received support from the Centre for Process Innovation,CERN, Croda, Ingenza, Kajeka, Labgenius, Microsoft, Prozomix, SilicoLife, TerraVerdae Bioworks, The Genome Analysis Centre, University of Edinburgh and University of Liverpool.

More information about the grant
Natalio Krasnogor’s home page

Posted on 01/04/2016 by BioProNET Network

BioProNET at Big Bang @ Discovery Park

BioProNET recently took part in a science fair at Discovery Park in Kent, which aimed to inspire students to study STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects.

Around 900 school children, aged 11-14 attended the event, and many learned the difficultities in making antibody-based medicines by trying to make replica biologics out of modelling balloons.

The event was covered in a local newspaper and by Kent and Medway STEM, including some pictures of the students’ models. Although the event was called ‘Big Bang’ we’re happy to report that not too many of our balloons burst!