The Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (1988-2021) After 33 years as an independent academic department years, the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Sheffield, is no more. The new School of Biosciences, draws on the historic academic units of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Genetics, the Wolfson Institute of Biotechnology, Botany, Zoology, Physiology, Anatomy and Cell Biology which came together in the late 1980s to form the Departments of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (MBB), Animal and Plant Sciences (APS) and Biomedical Sciences ..read more

In a month where all academic and professional examinations have been cancelled or postponed, on the 16th of March, the clarion call from the leader of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was "test, test, test!". In the last few days, a major focus of news broadcasts has been the controversy surrounding the number of tests carried out per day, the countries who are prioritising testing, the reliability of the forecasts that influence government advice and regulation of its citizens, as well as the management of NHS and social care resources. Pretty important stuff, I thi ..read more

Years ago, when I was a schoolboy, in particular when it was a cold, wet winter's day, my mother would stop me on my way out of the door, look at how unsuitably dressed I was, and make it clear that if I went out dressed like that I would be sure to catch my death! This is a saying that dates back to the seventeeth century: my mother was born in the 1920s and her lessons in life and childcare skills were largely handed down from her mother from generation to generation, as was and still is the case for many families. As I got older, I managed to fob her off; but was she right?  Read the foll ..read more

In my last post, I explained the basic properties of Covid-19 and how it relates to other well known viruses. Of perhaps the greatest concern to everyone is how science and medicine can be harnessed to beat this virus. There are currently a limited number of pharmacological ways of combating the pathological effect of a virus. The first one I am going to discuss is vaccination and in a separate post I shall focus on antiviral drugs. Antidotes represent a specialist category of medicines that are administered to reverse the effects of a toxin and I won't discuss them here (maybe later). One sm ..read more

This is a short series of science oriented posts on the current Coronavirus pandemic. I intend to release them in bite-sized narratives and so there will be 3-4 to follow. All questions and comments welcome, but I should make it clear I am not a virology expert. It has been written for school students and teachers, but it may be of interest to current undergraduate students. The subject on everyone's lips (hopefully metaphorically and not physically!) is the Corona virus pandemic. With a tsunami of information everywhere, I thought I would provide some background to the issues that have cro ..read more

On Friday, at the end of my second MBB210 lecture, I left you all with the task of writing a Blog post on a Molecular Biology topic that interests you, that will also engage an audience of young scientists (and me!). If you haven't written a blog post before here are some generic guidelines that might help you plan your post. It is important to remember that different forms of scientific writing serve different purposes. The aim of this specific exercise is to present you with the challenge of producing a popular science article, but one that retains scientific integrity. I think all quality ..read more