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Newcastle

Great North Museum Science Fair

The Kawamura Group had a great day at the Great North Museum (GNM) Family Outreach Science Fair on 24th February 2022. The fair was part of the series of events to mark 150 years of Science, Agriculture and Engineering at Newcastle University.  It celebrated the shared history of collaborations between GNM and Newcastle University.  Open to the general public as part of GNM’s half-term programme, it involved a series of different activities showcasing research from across the faculty. It was a fantastic opportunity to share our research and to engage the next generation of scientists. It was also a great opportunity for the PGRs in the group to gain some… Read More »Great North Museum Science Fair

Kawamura Group 2021 Highlights

2021 has continued to be challenging for all of us, however the group has continued to progress and we have much to celebrate. The much anticipated Kawamura group Winter Symposium took place at last on 16th Feb 2022.  We reflected on two years since the group celebrated official handover of the Chemical biology labs (Feb 2020).  In this time we have more than doubled the footprint of the group, forged ahead with equipment purchases and set-up the synthesis/cold room space.  Thanks to all the hard work of the group! At the symposium we had a fantastic overview from the team showcasing all the diverse and exciting research happening across the… Read More »Kawamura Group 2021 Highlights

Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science

On International Day of Women and Girls in Science we are proud to celebrate the achievements of the intelligent, hard-working and passionate women in our group.  We have welcomed several new female scientists to the team including PhD students; Filomena Saulino (Oct 2020), Emma Wadforth (Oct 2021), Oliwia Rebacz (Oct 2021), and masters students (Jan 2022); Valeria Cobiltean, Hannah Hamilton. PDRA  Marie-Helene Ruchaud joined the team in September 2021, she is currently developing quantitative cellular assays to investigate inhibitors of SARS-Cov2. Chiara Maniaci was awarded a prestigious BBSRC Discovery fellowship in February 2020 and continues to make great progress with her research. Joanna Bonnici returned to the group in June… Read More »Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Welcome to our Mchem Students!

A warm welcome to our new Mchem Students, Oliver Crosby, Valeria Cobiltean and Hannah Hamilton who joined the group in January 2022. We hope to give them a rich experience learning from the diverse and fascinating science happening in the group and getting involved in our outreach activities.

We are recruiting!

We are recruiting! If you are interested in joining a vibrant, friendly and inclusive chemical biology team and work in a brand new chemical biology lab in the heart of Newcastle city centre, please apply here. We are looking to appoint two highly motivated and ambitious Research Assistants/Associates in Chemical Biology. We would like you to be suitably qualified with knowledge of: –    Organic Chemistry / Chemical biology –    Cell biology This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the Cancer Research UK programme funded work on histone demethylases (KDMs), a class of enzymes involved in epigenetic signalling. Dysregulation of some KDMs is strongly linked to cancer and some are… Read More »We are recruiting!

Tom starts his Royal Society University Research Fellowship

Earlier this month, Tom McAllister left his role as senior research associate in the group to start his prestigious five-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship. He will develop new ways to understand how proteins and carbohydrates interact. Projects include determining how human glycosylating enzymes implicated in cancer recognise their protein targets, furthering our fundamental understanding and paving the way for new diagnostics or treatments. Another is developing a novel alternative mode of treatment for the wheat pathogen, Z. tritici the causative agent of septoria leaf blotch disease. Z. tritici causes losses of ~20% crop yield and current fungicidal treatment costs €1B/year in Europe alone – this research will allow the… Read More »Tom starts his Royal Society University Research Fellowship

Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Programme Meeting

A virtual CRUK Programme Meeting took place on Friday 10th December 2021.  Great to get an overview of CRUK work across the Kawamura Group at Newcastle and the Schofield group at Oxford and set some goals for our research in 2022. Some engaging discussions on the latest developments in the field and a useful workshop on manuscripts to finish the meeting.  Looking forward to getting together in person next time hopefully!

Goodbye Hilal!

We bid a fond farewell to Dr Hilal Sarac who leaves the group this week for an exciting role as a senior scientist at Cancer Research UK, Target Discoveries Laboratory in the Francis Crick Institute in London. Hilal has been a credit to the group having made great process on the CRUK and ERC grants.  She will certainly be missed. We asked her to reflect on her time in the Kawamura Lab, she said: I really enjoyed my time both as a visiting PhD student and then as a postdoctoral researcher at Kawamura group in Oxford and in Newcastle. Fortunately, my path crossed with several talented scientists who work in… Read More »Goodbye Hilal!

Welcome to the Team Justina!

A warm welcome to Justina Heslop who joins us to support the group with reporting, events, social media and engagement. Justina has worked as a Research Project Manager at Newcastle University since 2017, supporting several research groups and projects across Chemistry and Engineering most notable the North East Centre for Energy Materials.

Welcome to our new PhD Students

A warm welcome to our new PhD students who joined us on 1st October 2021. Emma Wadforth, Oliwia Rebacz, Tom Smith, and Tim Bell will be working across a number of exciting projects funded by BBSRC, EPSRC MoS Med CTD, ERC.