Institute of Chemical Biology Project Manager
(Temporary appointment for 7 months, Maternity cover from 1 July 2013)
Imperial College London

For more information and details on how to apply, please visit www.imperial.ac.uk/employment, click ‘job search’ and enter NS 2013 105 AS in ‘keywords’. The closing date is 30 May 2013 (Midnight BST).

Research Associate in Synthetic Chemical Biology
Institute of Chemical  Biology, Imperial College London

For more information and details on how to apply, please visit www.imperial.ac.uk/employment, click ‘job search’ and enter NS 2013 089 AS in ‘keywords’. The closing date is 27 May 2013 (Midnight BST).

Ali Salehi-Reyhani, Sanjiv Sharma, Edward Burgin, Michael Barclay, Anthony E.G. Cass, Mark A.A. Neil, Oscar Ces, Keith R Willison and David Klug. Scaling Advantages and Constraints in Miniaturized Capture Assays for Single Cell Protein Analysis. Lab Chip 2013. DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41388H.

Single cell analysis is a demanding challenge.  Research groups involved in quantitative single cell analysis, including ourselves, are beginning to take the next step which is to multiplex in order to measure as many different proteins from a single cell at once.  Knowing how immunoassay performance scales with sensor and device geometry is very important for this next step; researchers must be acutely aware of the advantages and limitations that miniaturisation brings.  Although we make specific reference to single cell immunoassays, we have presented our manuscript in a manner which we hope will benefit readers who are interested in developing miniaturised capture-based assays of any type.

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/LC/C3LC41388H

Closing deadline for applications: 28 February 2013

Research Assistant/Associate

College of Science & Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Glasgow

For more details, please visit the Jobs at Glasgow website

Closing date for applications: 14th March 2013

16th – 17th January, 2013. The Royal Society, London, UK

Jointly organised by PPI-Net, RSC-BMCS, MGMS, SCI

http://ppi-net.org/events/

Symposium Overview
In recent years, new methods and techniques aimed at deciphering the inner workings of cells have provided unique insights, and changed the way we think about, as well as approach, modern cell biology research. With these advances in mind, the 2012 BioTechniques Virtual Symposium will focus directly on the latest approaches being used to characterize cell function and phenotype. From the genetic mechanisms controlling basic cellular processes to understanding how protein production and interactions shape cell structure and function – this one-day symposium will highlight techniques for teasing apart the genetic, proteomic, and metabolite landscapes of the cell.

Registration is free. Further information can be found at http://www.biotechniques.com/symposium/

Imperial College News

Dr Duncan Casey reports on the 2-day Creativity Training course.

“The course was held at Cumberland Lodge – a fantastic old venue in the shadow of Windsor Castle – and funded through a grant awarded to Dr Laura Barter (Chemistry) by the Postdoc Development Centre and the Institute of Chemical Biology at Imperial. It developed from the ‘sandpit’ events that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EPSRC) has established, in which you’re thrown into a five-day, £10 million competition with around 30 total strangers to put together a proposal to work on a strategic, multidisciplinary target. It’s certainly an intense, high- adrenaline way to plan your next project.

The best, but also the hardest, thing about the idea is that you’re working with people with wildly different skill-sets and experience. I helped develop a synthetic biology proposal with a plastic electronics designer and an economist, amongst others. Fortunately, the event came equipped with a group of facilitators and trainers from EPSRC and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and talks included one from an ex-editor at Nature, who spent a day helping cram some showmanship and theatricality into dry scientific presentations. It was great to hear that EPSRC would like postdocs to start appearing at the full sandpit events, and I’m very keen to get stuck into one.”

In this paper, we demonstrate that phononic lattices microfabricated on a disposable device enable a tool-box of fluidic functions, by shaping surface acoustic waves (SAW). By controlling the geometry of the phononic structure, we show that we can combine different functions on a single platform, using the excitation frequency as a handle to switch between the different actuations. Here we focused on the detection of infectious disease in a drop of blood, using mouse malaria as a model, to demonstrate a complete nucleic acid-based test, including cell lysis, mixing, and thermal cycling on a SAW platform. This will be used to elucidate genetic cues in oxidative damage.