Two years on from the originally scheduled timeslot, the UK DNA Replication Meeting finally got underway under an autumnal September Birmingham sky. The signs from the recent Commonwealth Games gave a dash of colour for those arriving by train into Birmingham New Street, with lots of speakers and over 80 posters to be presented epitomising the excitement for the community to meet and discuss their work. Much has changed since the meeting was first advertised in 2020 but despite the COVID-related disruption, the quality of research on display was incredibly high. We were welcomed upon registr ..read more

Are you struggling to keep on top of the literature in your field? Because I know I was, using keyword searches and alerts for tables of contents. In the first week of June 2022 32,294 entries were added to PubMed – an enormous amount of information is being made available every week and is increasing all the time. This makes it hard for researchers, like me, to keep up with the latest information being published in their field of interest. Searching and table of contents alerts have been the traditional way to keep up with publications, but these may not cover all relevant publications or pro ..read more

After a long time-awaited return to in-person international conferences, I was delighted to take part in the Drug Repurposing II conference held by the Biochemical Society on 10-11 May 2022. I traveled from the wonderful city of Naples, where I come from, to the theatrical and foreign London for the event It was exciting for me to re-experience this beautiful city that I’ve visited so many times, but I’ll never have enough of! Once I arrived in London I moved to Woburn House, the place where this amazing and interesting conference was held. As soon as I arrived, after the registration, I attac ..read more

Like many others from academia or industry, I have long been craving for attending conferences in person – not primarily fuelled by anything geeky, but more out of desperation to breathe and tread normally, like in pre-COVID times. With the majority of us now vaccinated and boosted (and kudos to the great science behind these life-savers), we have started to reclaim some normalcy in life, although this nasty bug is unlikely to go easily. When I first saw the Biochemical Society’s Drug Repurposing II meeting advertised on Twitter, it only took me seconds to make up my mind – ‘I don’t want to mi ..read more

By Dr Harley Worthy, Research Associate at University of Exeter  After nearly 820 days since my last in person meeting, interacting with the scientific community through the lens of my laptop webcam via Zoom and Microsoft Teams, I was able to attend a workshop in person. Finally, I was able to leave the scenery of rural Devon and head Northwards to Aston University in Birmingham for the 3rd UK Workshop on membrane proteins. The main focus of the workshop, to walk attendees through the process of working with membrane proteins. From expression, membrane solubilisation and purification thro ..read more

By Katie Lowles Fad diets come and go, with magazines and celebrities jumping on the recent fashionable way to shed some pounds while convincing others to do the same. There have been liquid diets, zero-carb diets and raw food diets but perhaps one of the strangest weight loss methods was the tapeworm diet. Tapeworms are a type of helminth, which simply means “a worm-like parasite capable of infecting humans or animals” – appetising right? In the 1900s, when the tapeworm diet was popular, dieters were voluntarily swallowing tapeworm eggs contained inside a pill. After being swallowed, the tap ..read more

For some SynBio UK was their first experience of a face-to-face academic conference. For others, it was the first chance to catch up with colleagues from around the country after almost two years of separation. For everybody, it was a fantastic opportunity to hear about the exciting fundamental and applied research in Synthetic Biology happening across the UK and beyond! The 2021 edition of Synthetic Biology UK invited researchers to Nottingham, famous around the world as the home of Robin Hood and his band of merry men. With its late November timing, the conference also coincided with the ci ..read more

By Caroline McKinnon On the 4th October 2021, Biochemical Society awarded a Sponsored Event Grant to Dr Caroline McKinnon at the University of Bristol for a project to recognise and celebrate the legacy of Henrietta Lacks. Members of the Lacks family address the audience (L-R Alan Wilks, Lawrence Lacks, Veronica Robinson, Jeri Lacks-Whye, Pam Wilks and Victoria Robinson). Image credit: University of Bristol October 2021 signified the 70th anniversary of the untimely passing of Henrietta Lacks, from who the HeLa cell line was taken from in 1951. To mark the occasion, the University of Bristol u ..read more

By Dr Vibhor Mishra Short Interfering RNA (siRNA) has come of age to unleash its full potential as a potent therapeutic. The onset of a series of FDA approvals of the siRNA medication targeting rare, previously untreatable genetic disorders and several other promising drug candidates in clinical trials have established the RNA Interference (RNAi) technology in the therapeutic realms. Designing a highly effective siRNA is one of the critical challenges of its downstream usage as a potential drug. The therapeutic siRNAs are generally designed using the knowledge we have gained studying the natur ..read more

By Irene Hallyburton (Malaria Research Scientist, Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research) and Ailsa Mackintosh (Public Engagement Officer, Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research) If science is the most communal of human endeavors, drug discovery is its pinnacle. Over the course of decades, many people work together in a cyclical process of design, create and test. They’re brought together with the shared goal: producing a single molecule, a new drug, which will improve the lives of those suffering from disease. The steps involved in discovering new me ..read more