The group had an excellent time attending the SULSA conference in Edinburgh. Mathew gave a presentation on the group's recent work (which was faithfully recorded by  Dr. Mathis Riehle from the University of Glasgow- see below), whilst Craig and Alex presented posters on their work on alpha-synuclein. 

The Edinburgh single-molecule biophysics group is happy to welcome Katie, Zoë and Sarah. Katie has started her Ph.D. working with Mathew and Seth Grant on elucidating the structure of post-synaptic complexes, whilst Zoë's Ph.D. project is joint with Lynne Regan and focuses on developing a new super-resolution microscopy method. Sarah is a fifth year Chemistry student, and will be working on the peptides associated with Alzheimer's disease. 

We'd like to express our gratitude once again for the continued support from Dr. Jim Love. His financial support last time allowed us to build a single-molecule confocal microscope that is now being used to study the protein aggregates that are formed during the progression of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. We will use this gift to further support our research, and in particular will use it to enhance our equipment within the laboratory. 

We are looking forward to presenting our results at the MNDA symposium that's taking place in Perth (the Australian one) in December. Details can be found below:

After having a grilling from academics across the university, both Alex and Owen have now passed their first year vivas and are now officially PhD students. Both performed well under pressure, and impressed their examiners. Watch this space for their science making an appearance soon. 

Huge congratulations to Yiyun for completing her research project in the Edinburgh Single-Molecule Biophysics Group. Yiyun joined us for three months as part of her Master's degree in Medicinal Biochemistry, and worked on characterising a novel alpha-synuclein antibody using single-molecule confocal microscopy, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, and TIRF microscopy. She recently presented her work at the School of Chemistry's student seminar day. 

The group had an amazing few days at the Physical Chemistry retreat at Firbush (Loch Tay). Lots of interesting science discussed in a relaxed environment. Topics ranged from "the worst mistakes in science", to "can dragons fly?", and "why are eggs fluorescent?". We also had great weather for the outdoor activities. 

We had a great time at the Photonex conference finding out about the exciting research happening around Scotland at the moment. It was fantastic hearing our collaborators Brian Patton and Marti Colom present their research, and find out what Juan Varela from the Klenerman Group in Cambridge will be doing in his new role as a PI at St. Andrew's.

We are happy to welcome Maggie to our group for the summer. Maggie is a medicinal chemistry student, and will be working on a project looking at antibodies designed for lipid-binding proteins. 

On the 26th May, the ESMB team completed the Edinburgh Marathon in a time of 3h50. Alex took the first leg, completing 8.3 miles in an impressive 1h8m, he then had a short wait for Blair who was running to start his leg after having transport issues getting to the relay point. He did 5.5 miles in 1h2m (including getting to the transition). Mathew then did his 8 mile leg in 51m before handing over to Owen to bring home the glory by running 4.4 miles in 48m.