2020 postgraduate symposium and Faculty of Natural Sciences showcase

Three PhD students in the Tate group received prizes for talks and posters

This year’s virtual postgraduate symposium showcased talks and posters spanning a wide range of research topics. Prizes were awarded for talks and posters, with PhD students Ryan Howard and Cassandra Kennedy winning prizes for talks on their research projects. The joint first prize for best poster was awarded to Ana Losada de la Lastra.

Ryan (1^st place)

Ryan’s research is aimed at designing, synthesising, and utilising a photoaffinity probe to identify targets of a novel pharmacophore that inhibits the pharmacologically relevant inflammatory pathway known as necroptosis. Ryan’s work is in collaboration with the University of Lisbon and AstraZeneca.

Cassandra (joint 2^nd place)

Cassandra's research project uses chemical probes to understand the regulation of inflammatory pathways in cells. In addition, the work aims to identify novel anti-inflammatory target proteins.

Ana Losada de la Lastra (joint 1^st poster)

Ana's research is focused on the post-translational addition of fatty acids to thiols in cysteine residues. The research poster discussed the development of a chemical genetic strategy to identify substrates in a high-throughput manner using chemical proteomics.

Ryan, Cassandra, and Ana then took part in the FoNS showcase where Ryan was invited to give a talk. Both Cassandra and Ana entered the poster competition, with Cassandra summarizing her research through a short video animation!

Well done to all prize winners!