Imperial College London 2021 Flexible Talent Mobility Account
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Materials
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Mary Ryan (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Lachowski D
(2022)
Substrate Stiffness-Driven Membrane Tension Modulates Vesicular Trafficking via Caveolin-1.
in ACS nano
| Description | The award's aim is to support the mobility of talented early career bioscience researchers and industrialists, and the mobility of bioscience technicians. This has been achieved by funding inward and outward secondments involving both SMEs and large industry partners. Five secondments were funded in total, four outward by postdoctoral researchers, and one inward for an industry-based technician. New and existing industrial collaborations have been supported through the Flexible Talent Mobility Account, including with SMEs (Manchester BIOGEL, London Biofoundry and Pulmocide). These collaborations have resulted in the development of prototypes, additional knowledge and experience for the ECRs, and the building of networks. The collaboration with MSD was shortlisted for The L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland For Women in Science Rising Talent Programme 2022, achieved a Highly Commended Award. |
| Exploitation Route | Collaboration with industry partners is continuing. Collaboration with MSD (Merck&Co) will continue beyond the scope of this fellowship to reach additional project goals and to further these studies beyond the original proposal. MSD has included the project in the collaborative portfolio of the work conducted at the Crick Institute. Code and protocols developed during the secondment at the London Biofoundry can be re-used for other projects, saving the time taken to develop these or to perform these tasks manually. To take the project further various funding sources are being considered, including accelerator programmes and Innovate UK schemes. Pulmocide is supporting an additional 6 month placement of the technician with ICL (worth £67,185) to evaluate their antifungal agent, which is at clinical stage, in the cell model set up in the FTMA scheme . This is likely to have saved them approx £9.5K compared to developing their own cell model for testing. The host PI is also seeking future funding from other pharma/biotech companies who are developing antifungal agents, and grants for using the cell model to elucidate the mechanism of fungus infection. The collaboration with Manchester BIOGEL also continues with the co-supervision of two PhD students between the industry partner and the Imperial research group. |
| Sectors | Healthcare,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Description | MSD (Merck&Co) |
| Organisation | MSD Europe |
| Country | Belgium |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This line of research has brought to the development of biochemical tools that can increase the activity of a protein phosphatase, thus allowing the study of protein phosphorylation homeostasis in cellular assays. The next step of the project will include enabling even more precise control of a specific protein phosphorylation status by developing bifunctional tools that target the protein of interest for dephosphorylation by the phosphatase under study. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Recently, MSD has established its UK headquarters in London. The Drug Discovery Centre, a state-of-the-art research laboratory, will be established in central London with the aim of investing in early bioscience research, gathering the brightest minds in chemistry, biology and pharmacology; in the interim, they are based at the Francis Crick Institute, where they benefit from advanced science technology platforms and crosstalk with cutting edge research conducted at the forefront of biomedicine. MSD is particularly interested in early bioscience research in the field of neuroscience, therefore providing an optimal setting to investigate the probes developed within the present collaboration. Informal exchange of ideas with MSD, as well as access to non-proprietary resources and facilities within MSD at the Francis Crick Institute has been provided. MSD has included the current project in the collaborative portfolio of the work conducted at the Crick Institute. |
| Impact | The opportunity to develop the first close collaboration involving an ECR in the growing field of heterobifunctional probes will promote a long-term partnership with MSD, with potential to extend into directly funded research collaborations or joint grant applications. MSD has included the current project in the collaborative portfolio of the work conducted at the Crick Institute. Internal exchange events are being planned and organised by MSD to further discuss and enable scientific exchange on related topics. The project was shortlisted for The L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland For Women in Science Rising Talent Programme 2022 |
| Start Year | 2022 |