Joint NIBB meeting – overcoming cellular barriers

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Over 75 BioProNET, BioCatNet and CBMNet members attended this joint NIBB (networks in industrial biotechnology and bioenergy) event, held on July 6th & 7th 2016 in Birmingham. After an introduction outlining the objectives of the event, attendees completed a ‘me profile’ describing who they were, their expertise, their dream project and what the next big development in their field of research could be. This was followed by a series of talks from academics and industry scientists in 3 sessions:

Protein trafficking in eukaryotic cells
Protein export from bacterial cell factories
Delivering therapeutic proteins and other compounds
Attendees then spent the rest of the day formulating potential project ideas and developing these new collaborations. This was then followed by a conference dinner where further networking took place, together with some football watching! The second day focused on ‘technology drivers’; after two talks attendees then moved into to groups to further develop project ideas. At the end of day two, 9 project ideas were generated and champions assigned to take these projects forward.

Posted on 09/08/2016 by BioProNET Network

New Protein Solubility Predictor Funded by PoC Award

Proof of Concept funding from BioProNET has enabled Jim Warwicker and colleagues from the University to build a webtool that predicts protein solubility. Recombinant biologics often have low solubility, due to their high concentrations, sequence and three-dimensional structure. The accumulation of insoluble protein agglomerates can lead to the formation of aggregates, which can impact biological activity and immunogenicity of a biologic.

Therefore determining the solubility of a protein and its propensity of a protein to aggregate would be of great use to the biopharmaceutical industry and researchers.

The funding from BioProNET enabled Jim and colleagues to develop existing code into a user-friendly web format. Users (anyone!) can paste a single sequence of amino acids into the tool; the software compares this sequence to a benchmark dataset of proteins with known solubility, and then returns a set of calculations that predict solubility of the protein based on its sequence.

The programme calculates a variety of properties — such as amino acid composition, net predicted charge, predicted pI value, ratio of conservative amino acids, propensity for disorder, propensity for forming beta strands and sheets — that indicate how soluble the entered amino acid sequence is likely to be.

The webtool is available here:
http://www.protein-sol.manchester.ac.uk/

The project is already bearing fruit, as it has been used as part of a successful proposal to the EPSRC formulation call. The software is still under development and further improvements, including those based on user-feedback will be added.

Protein-Sol: A web tool for predicting protein solubility from sequence
Hebditch M, Alejandro Carballo-Amador M, Charonis S, Curtis R, Warwicker J.
Bioinformatics doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btx345 May 29 2017

Posted on 26/07/2016 by BioProNET Network

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

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