Scientist - Single Molecules, Biophysics, Droplets, Membranes, Microfluidics & SynBio - Cardiff University Research Fellow & Senior Lecturer
Cardiff
Joined April 2016
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Haven't been on here much, mainly due to recovering from longcovid and it being exhausting. Despite all that, v.pleased with our latest collaborative work (aptly) on rapid SARS-CoV-2 variant detection with ability to discriminate single nucleotide changes. medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Oliver Castell retweeted
3/ The cross-School @cardiffuni Screening Service based in @CUBiosciences , led by Dr Tomasz Jurkowski and Prof Pete Kille - winner of the “Exceptional Enhancement of Staff Wellbeing” award
Congrats to Tomasz!! Well deserved.
1/ Dr Tomasz Jurkowski - winner of the "Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to the University" - for his "extraordinary action" in his central role establishing the university's #COVID19 testing service. This is the only award chosen by the Vice-C!
Oliver Castell retweeted
The first comprehensive assessment of the cardiovascular complications of #LongCovid at 1 year, just published @NatureMedicine nature.com/articles/s41591-0…
by @zalaly and colleagues @WUSTLmed
People seemed to quite like levitating droplets, so a couple more vids from @JinLi_AOR
First, Jin shows you can spin and reshape droplets, using this to break/reform lipid bilayers (DIBs) between internal cores, and to reconfigure the droplet network.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
@JinLi_AOR did an great job driving this work. I’m sure he’d be keen to give a talk/seminar if anyone's keen to hear more. Give him a follow too!
We've a new pre-print "Building programmable multicompartment artificial cells incorporating remotely activated protein channels using microfluidics and acoustic levitation" up on @biorxivpreprint. Great effort by @JinLi_AOR on this work.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
As @DrMikeBooth's team point out in their recent review (frontiersin.org/articles/10.…) control of artificial cells is going to be vital for future applications. Here we address this by using ultrasonic & magnetic fields to selectively activate MscL channels in work with @phatmattbaker
Levitating artificial cells is kinda fun in itself, but @JinLi_AOR also shows how this can be used with microfluidics to reorganise, pattern and manipulate the internal structure and connectivity of artificial cells & also control function with selective activation/deactivation.
Think I found myself in a rarely occupied room today.
"if you have returned from certain towns in regions of northern Italy...."
Oliver Castell retweeted
Building programmable multicompartment artificial cells incorporating remotely activated protein channels using microfluidics and acoustic levitation biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor… #bioRxiv
Oliver Castell retweeted
VarLOCK approach for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and wastewater monitoring news-medical.net/news/202201… @medrxivpreprint @cardiffuni @BangorUni #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #coronavirus #covid #virus #variantofconcern #wastewatermonitoring
We applied to wastewater samples as well. In Cardiff, Swansea & Newport. We see the change in dominance from wildtype to Alpha to Delta - perhaps not surprising - but we also pick up the presence of Beta VoC in the community in a high background of Alpha. Useful for surveillance?
Can be readily adapted to any newly identified VOCs or other pathogens. Lots of hard work from Xinsheng and @tomek_criters and everyone really, but especially these two. Great project to be involved in. Have a read here (pre-print, not yet peer-reviewed) medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/…