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Welcome Chloe and Lucie9/2/2019 It's that time of year again when the labs are buzzing with lots of excited undergraduate project students as they embark on the final hurrah of their degrees. This year the Hughes Lab welcomes Chloe Jones and Lucie O'Donnell. Plenty of cloning, creating CRISPR/Cas9 knockouts and other molecular biology fun. We can't wait to see what you uncover!
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AMS Conference29/11/2018 To cap a productive 2018, David presented one of the four plenary talks at this year's Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) Winter Science Meeting, where he proudly reported on the fantastic progress the team has made over the last 9-12 months. As mentioned on the AMS website, "The Winter Science Meeting is a great opportunity for our award holders to showcase their research, network with each other, Academy Fellows and research funders..."
The talk focused on research carried out by David Holthaus and Andri Vasou on our new mechanistic understanding of virus resistance in cells with ISG15 loss-of-function and how this new knowledge can be used to identify new ways our cells combat viral infections. An excellent meeting.
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Welcome to the lab Andrew3/10/2018 Andrew Seaton, a graduate of the University of Kent (BSc. Hons) and the University of Edinburgh (MSc.R), joined the lab this week to start his PhD. His project, funded by Tenovus Scotland, is to investigate the antiviral mechanisms of ISGylation with a particular focus on paramyxoviruses.
Welcome, and we can't wait to see what you uncover!
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Welcome to the lab Andri12/7/2018 We welcome Dr Andri Vasou who started today to investigate the role of ISG15 in innate immunity. Andri completed her PhD in St Andrews with our colleague Dr Cathy Adamson. Following a stint in Cyprus, we're happy to have you back!
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Grant Success - Tenovus18/6/2018 We have just been awarded a Tenovus Scotland 2018 Studentship to investigate the molecular mechanisms that underlie the antiviral process known as ISGylation.
We are extremely grateful to Tenovus for this award. https://tenovus-scotland.org.uk/
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Welcome to the lab David24/4/2018 David Holthaus, from Radboud University, The Netherlands, has joined the lab for 9 months to complete a Master’s thesis on the interactions between ISG15 and viral infections.
We’re happy you’re here, and we can’t wait to see what you uncover!
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Postdoc position available27/2/2018 We seek an enthusiastic and motivated individual with experience in a cognate area to continue and extend these studies, focussing on the regulatory role of ISG15 in interferon signalling. We use a multidisciplinary approach including molecular biology, cell biology, proteomics and imaging technologies to investigate virus-host interactions. We also collaborate closely with Prof Richard Randall (world-renowned for his work on the interferon system and virus infection) and colleagues at the University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR).
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Grant Success - AMS6/2/2018 We’re really excited to announce that we have just had our Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard grant funded and we will soon be recruiting a postdoc to join the team. Informal inquiries can be made by email – [email protected]
Lay summary of the project: As our first line of defence against viruses our cells produce factors aimed at fighting the infection. This response, known as the innate immune response, involves hundreds of proteins that work in concert to directly attack the virus and to self-regulate the magnitude of the response; the latter is essential as a dysregulated response can lead to debilitating and often life-threatening autoimmune diseases. Our research focuses on the involvement of a protein called ISG15 in this response. Importantly, people have been identified who cannot produce ISG15 and this caused diseases collectively known as autoinflammatory interferonopathies, characterised by increased susceptibility to infections and adverse reactions to vaccination. Furthermore, it tells us that ISG15 plays a critical role in the proper regulation of our immune response. This work is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms that ISG15 regulates in order to bring about normal function of our innate immune response. Together, this programme of research will provide important insights into the physiological role of ISG15 during the immune response which has implications for our fundamental understanding of innate immunity,health and disease.
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2018 RIVR meeting4/1/2018 It’s that time of year again when many of the new PIs from the UK virology research community meet to discuss their exciting research. It’s also a great opportunity for everyone to discuss the trials and tribulations of starting a new lab, and to bounce ideas off one another in a very supporting atmosphere. Both years I’ve attended I have come away with lot of inspiration, potential new collaborations and great new ideas to test . As usual, the talk from our ‘experienced’ virologist (this year from Prof Mark Harris, University of Leeds), was very enlightening. I think Mark even surprised himself when he realised he’s been a virologist for 35 years!
This was Dalan Bailey (Pirbright Institute) and Jamel Mankouri’s (University of Leeds) last time to organise the meeting, as tradition dictates that after two years, the reigns are handed over. Both years they were at the helm ran perfectly, and a huge thanks is owed to them. Now, it’s good luck to Keving Maringer (University of Surrey) and Juan Fontana (University of Leeds) for the next two RIVR meetings. If you would like to get involved, get in touch. UK virology is certainly in safe hands!
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Two new papers published14/11/2017 We are pleased to announce that the lab has published two new research articles in Science Signalling. The first is work describing an innovative approach to investigating protein-protein interactions that are dependent on SUMOylation. Critically, we developed ways of discriminating between the highly related protein isoforms of SUMO. The second is an accompanying ‘Protocol’ that describes our approach.
Citations: Hughes DJ+, Tiede C, Penswick N, Tang AAS, Trinh CH, Mandal U, Zajac KZ, Gaule T, Howell G, Edwards TA, Duan J, Feyfant E, McPherson MJ, Tomlinson DC+, Whitehouse A+.Generation of specific inhibitors of SUMO1- and SUMO2/3-mediated protein-protein interactions using Affimer (Adhiron) technology. Science Signaling 2017; 10(505). +Corresponding authors. Read it. Tang AAS, Tiede C, Hughes DJ, McPherson MJ, Tomlinson DC. Isolation of isoform-specific binding proteins (Adhirons/Affimers) by phage display using negative selection. Science Signaling 2017; 10(505). Read it. |