Edition 6 Autumn/Winter 2012

www.le.ac.uk/genetics/genie

GENIEnewsGenetics Education Networking for Innovation and Excellence

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys retiring

Mention the phrase DNA fingerprinting and one automatically thinks of CSI type forensic investigations.

In fact, it’s difficult to imagine a World where DNA fingerprinting does not exist, especially since the technique has such widespread uses in areas from criminal investigations, through to animal breeding and wildlife classification.

Who would have thought that the ’blurry mess’ – as Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys described his results at the time, would open up a whole new field of science. Well actually Alec did. He was quick to realise the potential of his discovery in what he calls his ‘Eureka moment’. Where many scientists might have gone back to the bench assuming their experiment had failed, Alec had the foresight to recognise the import of his discovery and the rest as they say is history. His interest in science began at a very early age, thanks to the gift of a chemistry set from his father. Rather worryingly, Alec ‘enhanced’ the set with the purchase of more ‘adventurous’ chemicals, including sulphuric acid (he still bears the scars from these experiments under his beard). Luckily, his research interests shifted with the gift of a microscope and a love affair with biology began.

Alec went on to study Biochemistry at Merton College, Oxford and graduated with a first class honours degree. He also obtained his DPhil at Oxford, before taking up a postdoctoral position at the University of Amsterdam to work in mammalian genetics. It was during his time in Amsterdam, that Alec, using the then ‘new’ technique of Southern blotting, produced the first physical map of a mammalian gene. This work led on to Alec becoming one of the first people to discover eukaryotic introns.

The Editors

Welcome to the GENIE Autumn edition. We have had a busy few months and have lots to tell you about. In this edition we take a look at Professor Sir Alec Jeffrey’s contribution to research at the University of Leicester as he will be retiring this year. We bring you up to date on how well the iGEM team have progressed, our research in focus piece this time is by Dr Ed Green from the Department of Genetics. We give you a brief update on some of the meetings GENIE has attended recently and much more. We would also like to welcome the latest additions to the GENIE team: Sunita Joshi, Jon Ordish and Maxine Bodicoat – we will be reporting on their projects in future newsletters. So read on, enjoy and as usual we welcome all feedback and any comments you may have. Contact us by email, Facebook or twitter.

Editors: Dr Aneela Majid and Dr Colin Glen

Contact UsIf you have any comments, news or reviews please contact:

Dr Aneela Majid · am242@le.ac.ukDr Colin Glen · cdg9@le.ac.ukFacebook: www.facebook.com/

LeicesterGenieTwitter: GENIE_tweets

Portrait of Alec painted by artist Tess Barnes

2 GENIE NEWS EDITION 6 AUTUMN/WINTER 2012

It was purely by chance that Alec came to Leicester. After his postdoctoral position in Amsterdam, Alec had a number of options open to him. He could have carried on as a postdoctoral scientist, gone to work with Ed Southern in Edinburgh or pursued a solo career. He came to the attention of Professor Bob Pritchard, the founder of the Department of Genetics in Leicester. A phone call inviting Alec to interview for the position of temporary lecturer in Leicester followed and 35 years later Alec (in his own words) is ‘still here!’. There are a number of reasons why he chose to remain in Leicester, primarily the collegiate atmosphere and the knowledge that he could ‘just get on with things’. He has never been tempted to go elsewhere, partly as this would have entailed a senior scientist administration position, which would have taken him away from his ‘hands on’ approach in the lab. His passion for scientific research is clear and you are more likely to find him in a lab coat than in his office.

The very first case where DNA fingerprinting was used was in an immigration dispute. It was not a legal case, which Alec feels was fortunate. Had this been a murder case, the new technique may well have been challenged strongly, which could have had a negative impact on the future of DNA fingerprinting. Instead it was a ‘feel good’ story which stopped the deportation of a young boy (the home office dropped the case based on Alec’s findings). Alec recalls how it gave him a ‘brilliant’ feeling to be able to use science to help a family stay together. The press ran with the story and soon Alec and his lab were inundated with requests to the point where the university switchboard was blocked by calls for help. He describes that particular period of time as ‘exciting’ but ‘exhausting’. Luckily, he was able to hand over the handling of these cases to a company, Cellmark, which was set up in 1987 and the technique became commercially available.

Alec was made a professor in genetics in 1987. He has been a fellow of the Royal Society since 1986 and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor since 1991. He has been honoured by numerous awards and medals since 1985, amongst these, the Davy Medal by the Royal Society in 1987, a Knighthood for services to genetics in 1994 and the Australia Prize in 1998. He was awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine in 2004, a prize awarded to scientists who are distinguished for the highest quality of biomedical research in Europe and the Lasker award for clinical medical research in 2005. In addition Alec also holds fellowships with the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Chemistry and the Royal College of Pathology to name a few.

With Professor Annette Cashmore (Director of GENIE) at a world press conference on the 20th anniversary of DNA fingerprinting

The first DNA fingerprint

25th anniversary of DNA fingerprinting

Celebrating with Lady Susan Jeffreys

Alec at the launch of The Institute of Genetics (2002) with Professor Cashmore, Professor Sir Paul Nurse, Professor Sir Bob Burgess and Professor Ed Louis

It literally took Alec a minute to realise the potential of his discovery that Monday morning in 1984, but the true impact of what he had discovered was yet to hit home. At the, time he was wondering how to improve the technology to the point where it could be used reliably and was dubious that anyone would ‘take notice’ of the technique. In fact he was convinced that his technique would only be used as a ‘last resort’. Little did he realise that his discovery would spawn a whole new spectrum of sciences, from DNA Forensics to Molecular Ecology.

Alec retires this year but will retain a position at the University of Leicester as an Emeritus Professor. He feels extremely privileged to have had held the Royal Society chair but feels it is time that the chair is given to someone else. Rather humbly for someone with such an illustrious career, he feels he is ‘chewing up resources’ and is keen to pass this ‘life changing’ opportunity to another person. Of course if something ‘interesting’ should pop up, Alec admits he may be tempted back into the lab! He is an inspiration for the next generation of scientists and we wish him the best in his retirement.

EDITION 6 AUTUMN/WINTER 2012 GENIE NEWS 3

Leicester students compete to develop solution to polystyrene pollution

The University of Leicester has entered a team of 2nd year undergraduates into the 2012 International Genetically Engineered Machine competition

The iGEM competition (http://igem.org/Main_Page) is the world’s largest annual synthetic biology competition where undergraduates spend their summer vacation working in real laboratories to build “genetically engineered machines”.

The Department of Genetics is hosting the team which draws members from across the University and they have partnered with GENIE to develop and publicise the project. They are being supervised by Dr Richard Badge, Dr Raymond Dalgleish and Professor Julian Ketley of the Department of Genetics,

but the project has been devised by the students and will be carried out entirely by them. The team have decided to address a major environmental pollutant: polystyrene. Although expanded polystyrene is an incredibly useful product it is not cost effective to recycle fully. The students aim to build an organism that can degrade this material into useful chemical building blocks, something that is simply not economically feasible at the moment. One way they plan to do this is by capturing microorganisms from the soil that show the ability to degrade

polystyrene, find the genes responsible for this ability and insert them into lab bacteria. Once discovered the genes can be manipulated to improve the degradation efficiency.

So far they have received lots of environmental sampling packs back from the “Citizen Scientists” who buried them

in gardens and allotments across the country, and are currently in the lab culturing the bacteria prior to selecting ones that have genes necessary for polystyrene degradation. To date the team have raised the entry fee and are fundraising for money to carry out the project, as well as to travel to Amsterdam to compete in the European Jamboree - the winners of the regional competitions get to go to the competition final in the USA. The team is being supported by reagent and equipment suppliers through donations in kind.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys has backed them by donating the majority of the $2200 entry fee and the team recently received £500 in sponsorship from the polystyrene manufacturing company, Styropack. However the project is being run on a shoestring, with none of the undergraduates receiving grants towards living costs, so donations are always welcome, particularly as the students are still some way off their target to attend the Amsterdam jamboree. For more information and to keep up to date with the project, see http://uoleicesterigem2012.blogspot.co.uk

Dr Mark Goodwin visits Gondar PhD students

Dr Mark Goodwin travelled to Ethiopia in May 2012 as part of GENIE’s

management of the Leicester–Gondar PhD programme.

The initiative is designed to develop a sustainable research capacity at Gondar University and promote collaborative research involving the

University of Leicester, Gondar University and other universities in Ethiopia.

The PhD programme – which is supported by the University of Leicester

and Gondar University – evolved from

a long-standing link between health

professionals in Leicester and Gondar

established by Professor Mike Silverman.

Three members of staff from Gondar are

currently registered as PhD students at the

University of Leicester. The topics include

the genetics of important agricultural

crops, drug-resistant tuberculosis

and aspects of maternal health.

It is hoped that the development of

sustainable research into topics of local

interest, supported by collaborations

involving UK and Ethiopian institutions, will

allow the participants to become research

leaders in their disciplines in Ethiopia. If

you would like to know more about the

PhD programme, please contact Dr Mark

Goodwin in the GENIE CETL (telephone

0116 252 3489, email majg1@le.ac.uk).

Research in Focus

The fruit fly as a model of Huntington’s disease

Dr Ed Green (Department of Genetics).

4 GENIE NEWS EDITION 6 AUTUMN/WINTER 2012

The humble fruit fly you find buzzing around your bananas every summer has a secret life as an important research tool in the lab. Incredible as it seems, understanding the biology of the fruitfly – or Drosophila melanogaster to scientists – actually helps us understand human biology – even though we diverged from each other 500 million years ago! In fact, three quarters of genes which can cause disease in humans can also be found in the fly, so fruitflies are important models for most of the diseases you’ve heard of, from obesity to very rare genetic disorders.

Here in the Genetics Department at the University of Leicester we use Drosophila as a model of Huntington’s disease – a relatively rare genetic disorder with important similarities to the more common Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Typically individuals suffering from Huntington’s disease suffer progressive neuronal loss in specific parts of the brain, typically beginning in their 30s, causing them to become severely uncoordinated and unable to look after themselves. The disease is fatal, and there is no known cure. Incredibly, fruitflies expressing the mutant gene underlying Huntington’s disease show very similar symptoms. We maintain large numbers of such fruitflies, which can complete the whole life cycle from egg to adult in less than two weeks, in order to test whether we can prevent the development of these symptoms by feeding them chemical compounds – the very first step in drug discovery. We have screened large numbers of these compounds, and have found several promising leads – one of which is now about to enter safety trials.

Our research towards developing novel drugs represents just one part of a huge international effort involving many different scientific groups employing many different approaches to understand, and ultimately prevent, devastating neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s disease.

ContactsDirector: Professor Annette Cashmore w: www.le.ac.uk/genetics/genie t: 0116 252 3319 e: genie@le.ac.uk

Follow us on Facebook and TwitterFacebook: www.facebook.com/LeicesterGenie Twitter: GENIE_tweets

4776_08/12

Meetings

Higher Education Academy (HEA) conference 3rd and 4th July The title of this year’s annual HEA conference was ‘Great Expectations – are you ready?’. Professor Annette Cashmore attended the conference, which was held in Manchester. She commented how now, more than ever, it was evident that there was a growing national community of people passionate about teaching and learning.

Annual Summer Society ExhibitionGENIE took part in the Royal Society’s annual Summer Science Exhibition. This was a joint collaboration between GENIE, the Department of Health Sciences, Department of Genetics and colleagues from Glenfield Hospital. The title of the exhibition was ‘Breathless Genes’ and focussed on lung health. We will be giving a more ‘in depth’ report on the exhibition in our next issue.

Upcoming events

International Society For The Scholarship Of Teaching & Learning (ISSOTLE)The ISSOTLE meeting is aimed at staff and students interested in teaching and learning. Members from the GENIE group will be presenting at the 2012 meeting in Canada which will be focussed on research on teaching and learning: integrating practices. We will be reporting on the meeting in our next newsletter.

Public engagement lectures 2013The next public engagement lectures will take place on the 12th March 2013 at 6.30pm. The first speaker will be Dr Julian Barwell, a senior lecturer in the Department of Genetics and an honorary consultant at the Leicester Royal Infirmary whose talk is entitled ‘supporting and protecting families with cancer in our local community’. Our second speaker is Dr Blair Grubb from the Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmacology, whose talk is rather intriguingly called ‘red hot chilli peppers’. The lectures will take place in the Frank and Katherine May lecture theatre, Henry Wellcome building. To book your place, or for further information, please email: genie@le.ac.uk.

Other News

AwardsCongratulations to Dr Cas Kramer and Dr Raymond Dagleish, both from the Department of Genetics, who received University Teaching Fellowship awards in recognition for their outstanding and inspiring contributions to teaching and the student learning experience.

MarathonGENIE have entered a team in this year’s Leicester Half Marathon to help raise money for charity. Read the Team GENIE blog at http://teamgenie.tumblr.com/