The BioLab has chosen to highlight the current student projects in the lab, and the now-ready AF4 system.
For more information, please click here to access the BioLabs page.
The BioLab has chosen to highlight the current student projects in the lab, and the now-ready AF4 system.

Contents:

Students (2023 intake)
General Updates

Luke’s project involves sample synthesis, growing bacteria in deuterated media. Bacteria can generally only handle a small amount of deuterated media, so he has grown it in stages, increasing the deuterated percentage of the media and selecting from the most well-adapted bacteria to grow the next stage. This results in bacteria adapted to growing in a highly deuterated media, which can then be processed further to obtain the deuterated bacterial membranes.

The ultimate aim of this project is to obtain deuterated bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which will be used on beamlines as a model for the bacterial membrane, for example Luke Cliffton’s reflectometry measurements to probe antibacterial drugs using a membrane model utilise purified LPS in building the surfaces.The value of using this biochemical purification method of outer bacterial membrane is that it doesn’t require a large quantity of harsh chemicals such as phenol, chlorofom etc. The resulting LPS will be significantly cleaner when compared to the current chemical extraction methodologies.

More details about Luke’s placement are available here. A copy of Luke’s presentation is available here.

James’ project is similarly involved in the synthesis of biodeuterated proteins, looking at both baculoviral expression system using insect cells. These insect cells are closer to animal cells in how the proteins are modified and folded, which makes them valuable for more accurate models. However, D2O is toxic for them, so the only way to deuterate them is to use a deuterated carbon source. Deuterated amino acids are expensive so we are looking to use processed deuterated algae extract, produced at ESS by Zoe Fisher. Recombinant baculovirus protein by comparison is closer in resemblance to mammalian protein than bacterial recominant protein and is better for working at larger scales, allowing protein production at the scale needed for neutron beamline measurements. Once succesful, we will be using deuterated viruses as well as deuterated recombinant proteins produced in baculovirus on the SANS2D beamline, studying protperties of protein complexes, as well as structure of viruses.

A summer placement student (Sian) has been selected from the many applicants. The project will run for 12 weeks, and will involve biodeuterated algae: these algae can be ‘juiced’ to provide a deuterated carbon source for insect cell/baculovirus sysyem, effectively acting as deuterated feed. We will also use the deuterated algae extract to produce recombinant proteins for users and our collaborators at CLF who will use deuterated fluorescent proteins to study proton tunneling quantum effects. Sian is enrolled on a biochemistry masters at University of Southampton.