Integrate student research projects teaching into staff research

yesUniversity lecturers are required to undertake teaching and also to produce high quality papers for REF. This can be a very hard situation, especially for early career researchers. They always face the diplomas of no starting-up funding and no man power to start a new research area. This could be very challenging. Apart from constantly pursing funding and establishing collaboration, I integrated student research projects teaching into my own research. I summarise main points which help me to achieve. 1) Designing a multidisciplinary project. Research informed teaching is the key to success. Based on my own research plan, I designed interdisciplinary project to attract students with particular attention to decompose comprehensive research proposal into small parts which is achievable within students’ ability and time scale. For example, in the past two years I designed a series projects for final year undergraduates and MSc students based on my own projects of “interaction of nanoparticle with cell membrane”. Within these projects, students will have chance to expose themselves to research. For example, students will be able to explore new research area of nanotechnology, especially on nanoparticles; basic biological lab skills like cell culture, treating cells with toxins; and physiological implication of nanoparticles interacting with human body etc. These greatly inspire students thinking. At the meantime, giving student freedom and full supervision allow them to be successful. Through carefully supervision I am confident that I could get preliminary data from students’ experiments for my grant application. 2) Integrating resources to exert full. I deliberately arranged students at different levels to join in my own project at different stages. For example, final year undergraduate projects starts from Oct every year and last till March, then MSc project starts from Feb every year and last till August. I also apply for small funds to have summer students from July to Sept. Therefore I can always have students doing some experiment in the lab. The budgets from student projects are really good boost and supplementary for my own project. There is also a consistency in the projects to avoid waste and unnecessary repeat. I included students in materials, equipment preparation and explained key updated skills to increase students’ passion and to inform them of how to start a new topic from scratch. 3) Setting high standard to achieve. I continuously encourage students to achieve. It would be great to have someone who can work through whole period of your new research proposal. I particularly encourage students to design experiments, to deliver ideas, to write scientific reports for conference, and even to draft paper for submission. This would not only help students for their future career but also help myself to quickly build up my own research. It is hard process but worth

Endothelial cell activation in vascular disease mediated by hydrogen peroxide in vitro

yesThe development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main cause of death among chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients (1). Endothelial injury and dysfunction are critical steps in atherosclerosis, a major CVD (2). Increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) has been associated with the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, hypertension and heart failure (3). However, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) modulates endothelial cell function by intricate mechanisms. Ambient production of O2.− and subsequently H2O2 at low levels, maintained via basal activity of pre-assembled endothelial NAD (P) H oxidases (4). Endothelial cells play an important regulatory role in the circulation as a physical barrier and as a source of a variety of regulatory substances. Dysfunction of the vascular endothelium is thus leading to atherosclerosis which is characterised by overexpression of adhesion molecule expression, comprising vascular cell adhesion molecule 1(VCAM1). This adhesion molecule has been found to be up-regulation in human atherosclerotic lesions. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of H2O2 on the endothelial cells adhesion molecules expression. Primary cultures of Human Umbilical Vascular Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) will be maintained in endothelial growth medium supplemented with penicillin-streptomycin and supplement mix of fetal calf serum in a 37C humidified incubator in an atmosphere of 5% v/v CO2. HUVECs will be treated with in the presence and absences of 50 μM of H 2O2 for 2, 6, 12 and 24 h. Intracellular superoxide anion production in HUVECs will be detected by using p-Nitro Blue Tetrazolium (NBT) assay to demonstrate whether H2O2 induce the generation of superoxide anions intracellularly in HUVECs. The formation of blue formazan will be measured spectrophotometrically at 570 nm. Total RNA will be extracted from non-treated and treated cells and RNA quantity and quality will be checked by OD260/280 measurements. VCAM-1 mRNA expression will be assessed using RT-PCR. Our results show that H2O2 could potentially significantly induce EC activation through increased mRNA expression of ICAM-1 adhesion molecules in cultured HUVECs. Treatment with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) (bulk/nano form) could significantly attenuate the effect of H2O2 administration on adhesion molecule protein expression. This strongly suggests the role of ROS in the endothelial cell damage sustained. Future work is to find reliable methods to test endothelial function. Non-invasive studies such as brachial ultrasound testing are also needed to determine its predictive value as a potential predictor for cardiovascular disease

Cytotoxicity of in vitro exposure of polystyrene latex bead nanoparticles to human keratinocyte (HaCaT) cells and human cervical cancer (HeLa)cells

yesNanoparticles are increasingly used in industry and medicine due to their unique physiochemical properties such as their small size, charge, shape, chemical architecture, large surface area, surface reactivity and media interactions, etc [1-5]. However, very little is still known on the interactions between nanoparticles and the biological system. This study aims to evaluate the cytotoxicity of polystyrene latex bead nanoparticles on HaCat and HeLa cell lines. Carboxyl-modified 20 nm polystyrene NPs core labelled with fluorophore were from Invitogen. We chose to use polystyrene NPs because this specific type of NP is being increasingly characterized for use in nanosensors and drug nanocarrier investigations. 1x 104 cells/100 μl of cell culture medium were plated into 96-well plates in triplicate, measuring activity post 24 hours at concentrations of 10, 50, 100 μg/ml of polystyrene NPs exposure. The extracellular lactate dehydrogenase release was measured by using a colorimetric CytoTox 96 nonradioactive assay kit from Promega and the absorbance were recorded at 450nm (FLUO-star) with Elisa micro plate reader. The MTT assay was used to evaluate mitochondrial activity. This was performed by inserting a premixed optimized dye solution in the culture wells. The Absorbance was recorded at 570 nm, from the recorded absorbance is directly proportional to the number of live cells. The cell lines were kept in a plastic T-75cm2 tissue culture flasks grown in DMEM. We found that cytotoxicity of polystyrene NPs on both cells was concentration dependent. For Hela cells, with exporesure of polystyrene NPs at concentrations of 10, 50, 100 μg/ml for 24 hrs, the percentage cytotoxicity of positive control for LDH assay was 35.9%, 49.5% and 73.4% respectively. With the MTT cell viability assay the percentage MTT reduction of negative control was 88.9%, 42.9% and 26.4% respectively. Cell toxicity increased with increasing polystyrene NPs concentration. For HaCaT cells, the cytotoxic effect is less significant than those on Hela cells. With MTT assay, when compared to HaCaT cells exposed to a negative control containing only PBS, the cell viability decreased as the concentrations of NPs increased. Cells exposed to 100μg/ml of polystyrene NPs for a period of 24 hours compared to those exposed to a positive control (100% cell viability) had an average cell viability of 49%, with those numbers decreasing from 59% for cells exposed to 10μg/ml of polystyrene NPs to 57% for cells exposed to 50μg/ml of polystyrene NPs. Our results indicated that polystyrene NPs acted differently in two different cell types and that cautions should be taken about its cytotoxicity. Further understanding of the mechanism involving the ROS generation could provide more information on how polystyrene NPs increase cytotoxicity

Learning from the past and looking to the future after review conference: integrating NGO work on codes of conduct and an international biological security education network into the next BTWC intersessional process

This small sized half day hybrid workshop will bring together experts from civil society and international organisations to have an informal brainstorm after the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) 9th Review Conference of December 2022 and the start of new venture for the BTWC and civil society. In particular, we will review the first meeting under the radical new Intersessional Process (ISP) held in March 2023 to organise the meetings that will take place later in this year and the following years through to the 10th Review Conference in 2028. Then we will discuss how civil society can contribute can to this new ISP in the light of the experiences in the earlier Inter Sessional Processes (ISPs). Finally, we hope to assess how science and technology review mechanism might be organised and how codes of conduct and education and training for scientists might best support the science and technology review in the new ISP. In summary, this workshop will be a space for general reflection especially on biological security education, the role of civil society expertise and a proposed roadmap for an international biological security education network

Global experts discuss biological security endeavours

The Biological Security Research Centre (BSRC) at London Metropolitan University hosted a small sized half day hybrid workshop on 28 April 2023. This workshop brought together experts from civil society and international organisations to have an informal brainstorm after the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) 9th Review Conference of December 2022 and the start of new venture for the BTWC and civil society. The workshop started by the welcome from Dr Hannah Hannah Brock Womack from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) and the introduction from Professor Lijun Shang, the founding director of the Biological Security Research Centre at London Metropolitan University. Mr Daniel Feakes, Chief, BWC Implementation Support Unit (ISU) within the Geneva Branch of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs introduced the organisation of the new BWC Intersessional Programmes (ISP) and what the next ISP might look like, and how Non-Governmental Organisations will be involved. Mr Richard Guthrie, from the BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP), UK shared his personal experiences and views he had at the 9th Review Conference and the March Meeting on the ISP. Then Mr. Tancredi Francese, Acting Permanent Representative of Italy to the Conference on Disarmament Geneva and Dr Filippa Lentzos discussed their recent paper on the Review Conference and the upcoming ISP in general. This was followed by Dr Jamie Revill, the Head of the WMD and Space Security Programmes at United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) exclusively explained how the new Science and Technology Review System could be integrated into the BWC meetings given the range of topics that are to be covered, and how Science and Technology might be handled in the next ISP. In the end, Dr Tom Hobson from Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) Cambridge University shared the recent Post Review Conference held by CSER and future networking in the UK. Professor Malcolm Dando, a visiting professor, and an associated member of BSRC introduced the development of a recent biological security education book co-edited with Professor Lijun Shang. Through these presentations, the workshop particularly reviewed the first meeting under the radical new Intersessional Process (ISP) held in March 2023 and how civil society can contribute to this new ISP in the light of the experiences in the earlier Inter Sessional Processes (ISPs). Some best applicable approaches to enhance communication between academic and diplomats are also warmly discussed. All attendants agreed that this kind of dedicated workshop should be encouraged to help civil society expertise to contribute to the future development of the BWC. The workshop was funded a grant awarded to Professor Lijun Shang by JRCT. Any enquiry please contact Professor Lijun Shang on [email protected]

Building biological security education network in Africa and beyond: rethinking of BWC after covid pandemic

Building biological security education network in Africa and beyond: rethinking of BWC after covid pandemi

Draft text for support of the Tianjin guidelines and biosecurity education

BWC 9th review conference: the ninth Biological Weapons Convention review conference. Statement on biosecurity education on behalf of the Biological Security Research Centre, London Metropolitan University, UK, and Tianjin University, Chin

A key role for scientists in strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention

It is not easy to be optimistic about international security at the present time, but 9th Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2022 agreed a renewed effort to strengthen the Convention after decades of stagnation. In March 2023 an agreement was also reached on an agenda and timetable for this effort over the next 2 years. Scientists have a long history of providing valuable input to such meetings, in this paper, we discuss how such input might best be provided with complicated challenges now facing the BWC and concluded that there is much that could be done, but greater coordination amongst scientists is needed