Since the last newsletter we have had a couple of exciting announcements that you may have seen in the news.
A three story building, formerly known as IFR2, owned by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is to be refurbished to extend innovation and incubation facilities, providing mixed laboratory and office accommodation. £1.4 Million of funding will be provided by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), £1 million from the Greater Norwich Development Partnership (GNDP), £500,000 from the BBSRC who also provide the land and buildings, £500,000 from the University of East Anglia and the remainder from other Norwich Research Park partners. The name of the new building will be announced in the next few weeks and the facilities are due to open in the summer. It will be managed by a new joint venture company Colney Innovations Ltd (CIL). Further information, click here

Also Colney Hall, earmarked by South Norfolk Council in their Development Plan for expansion of the Research Park, announced before Christmas that a deal had been made with Choice Lifestyles to provide a research and treatment centre for people with dementia, brain injuries and learning difficulties. Further information click here

Separately, landowner of the Colney Hall Estate James Boddy has gained outline planning for an Independent Life Centre for patients with multiple sclerosis. Further information, click here

The first generation of fluorescent proteins was responsible for revolutionary advances in bioimaging. The so-called second generation are photoactive proteins, i.e. ‘activated’ in some way by light. A grant in excess of £350,000 awarded to the research groups of Professor Steve Meech and Professor Phil Page in the School of Chemistry at the University of East Anglia will enable them to measure photodynamic properties of these proteins. With input from scientists in Japan and the USA, they hope to explore potential applications for them. Some of these proteins may be destroyed by light which could lead to the selective destruction of cells. Others may assist in delivery of drugs to specific cells in the body. Further information, click here

Laura McGillivray, Chief Executive of Norwich City Council will officially open National Science and Engineering Week in Norwich. A variety of events, 15-23rd March, will be run by representatives from across the Norwich Research Park. Also, the John Innes Centre will showcase its history as it celebrates its Centenary this year. ‘Science in Norwich Day’ on Saturday 20th March (10:00 – 16:00) will be a family science discovery day with hands on activities, exhibitions and displays for all ages. Further details, click here

An international consortium led by the John Innes Centre along with the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, the US Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University have in this week’s edition of the journal Nature presented an analysis of the complete genome sequence of the wild grass Brachypodium distachyon.

A few grass species provide the bulk of our food supply and new grass crops are being domesticated for sustainable energy and feedstock production. However there are significant barriers limiting crop improvement, such as a lack of knowledge of gene function and their large and complex genomes.

Michael Bevan from the John Innes Centre and one of the principal investigators explained the significance, “Our analysis of the Brachypodium genome is a key resource for securing sustainable supplies of food, feed and fuel from established crops such as wheat, barley and forage grasses and for the development of crops for bioenergy and renewable resource production”. Further information, click here

Significant advances for team at the John Innes Centre as their findings are published in the journal Science. Their research could lead to new antibiotic drugs with less potential for bacteria to acquire resistance to them, due to their mode of action. Their studies on Simocyclinone, a currently unexploited natural product have shown that it binds to an enzyme required by bacteria to grow, thereby exhibiting antibiotic properties.

Lead author Professor Tony Maxwell (pictured left, with Marcus Evans & Dr David Lawson,
L-R) explained that “If you can knock out this enzyme, you have a potential new drug. A completely new way to beat bacteria is an exciting find at a time when resistance to existing antibiotics is growing.”

The Simocyclinone molecule has two heads that dock into separate pockets in the enzyme which together are 100 times more powerful than when working individually. This approach is not used by any other antibacterial drugs so is an exciting advance. For further info., click here

Researchers from the University of East Anglia and Institute of Food Research have won a joint grant from the BBSRC to investigate the effects that processing, storage and human metabolism have on the beneficial anthocyanins found in berry juices and wines. Anthocyanins are in a class of compounds called polyphenols that are reported to have beneficial effects on the heart and blood vessels thus thought to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Previous experiments have used anthocyanins that have not been subjected to any processing etc., i.e. as they would be in raw fruit. The effects processing and digestion have on the disease fighting properties of these compounds is unknown. The programme aims to compare the action of pure anthocyanins with the compounds altered by digestion and processing. This will generate findings that could be useful for studies on other dietary polyphenols like those found in tea, coffee and chocolate. Further information, click here

PBL, UK technology management company on the Norwich Research Park announced in January that Sarum Biosciences Limited signed an exclusive worldwide licence agreement. Technology developed at the Institute of Food Research with a BBSRC ‘Follow on Fund’ will enable Sarum to develop and exploit therapeutic and diagnostic applications of a bacteriophage endolysin protein. This can be used for the treatment and detection of Clostridium difficile, a serious healthcare concern both within the UK and the rest of the world. For further information, click here

Scientists at the John Innes Centre have discovered that plants have a built-in ‘temperature sensor’ that controls their growth in response to temperature changes. Plants cope with large differences in temperature throughout the seasons and also day/night variations, adjusting their growth accordingly. They are very sensitive and this work shows they can detect differences of just 1ºC.

While the effect of temperature on plants has been known for hundreds of years, it has been a mystery until now how temperature is sensed. The findings of researchers Dr Vinod Kumar and Dr Phil Wigge published in the journal Cell, identifies a ‘thermometer’ gene. This knowledge could be crucial for breeding crops able to cope with the effects of climate change which has already cause significant and undesirable effects e.g. bringing forward when some plants flower and changing global distributions of species. In switching off this gene, they found that the plants “grew like plants at high temperature even when we turned the temperature right down” explained Dr Kumar.

Plants must continually adapt to their environment as they are unable to move around, and understanding how plants sense temperature will enable scientists to examine how different species will respond to further increases in global temperatures. “We may be able to use these genes to change how crops sense temperature,” said Dr Wigge. “If we can do that then we may be able to breed crops that are resistant to climate change”. For further information, click here

In early February, the Research Park showcased careers in Health & Life Sciences to over 250 students and teachers from the County’s schools. The Student Convention called ‘Research Your Future’ was organised by the Norwich Research Park Office and sponsored by Norfolk County Council. It gave students a chance to perform blood coagulation tests used by pathologists in the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital and discover the cause of the Irish potato famine, potato late blight, among many other hands-on activities.

Opened by Daniel Cox, Leader of Norfolk County Council, the event had over 80 exhibitors and speakers from the Norwich Research Park and industries across the County. Students heard careers talks ranging from how to become a Forensic Scientist to working as a Consultant Anaesthetist.

Teachers endorsed the day saying that this “event was superb and a vital service that inspires and informs young scientists”.

Many thanks to all across the research park and further afield who volunteered for the day.

The Memorial Symposium to honour Chris Lamb (former director of the John Innes Centre) will take place on Thursday 4th March 2010 in the John Innes Centre Lecture Theatre. It will aim to reunite many of Chris’s colleagues and laboratory members and provide a great day of science, whilst reflecting on all that he achieved.

Chris’s sudden death aged 59 in August last year shocked the worldwide scientific community. In his 10 years as director of one of the world's leading centres of plant research, he attracted many top scientists to Norwich and the John Innes Centre became internationally respected for excellence in science.

Anyone interested in attending the free symposium must complete a registration form, click here for further details.

Scientists from the Sainsbury Laboratory have applied for permission for a three year trial of genetically modified Desiree potatoes in two plots over 1000 sq metres of land.

The potatoes have been modified to incorporate blight resistant genes from wild potato ‘relatives’. Potato late blight is a major disease affecting potato crops with farmers in the UK having to spray crops with fungicide around 17 times a year. The spraying has a detrimental environmental impact as well as the disease accounting for losses of £3.5bn per annum across the worldwide potato industry.

The GM potatoes will be grown inside a protective crop of Maris Piper potatoes and will be destroyed after analytical test, not entering the food chain. The land will be surrounded by a high fence and will not be cropped for two years following the trial. Further info., click here

The plant polysaccharide pectin is of great importance to both food and pharmaceutical industries. Research carried out by Dr. Andy Round from the School of Pharmacy with colleagues at the Institute of Food Research using cutting edge atomic force microscopy techniques shows with molecular detail how the breakdown of the pectin structure changes its gelling properties.

The ‘Faculty of 1000 Biology’, has recommended the paper as a ‘must read’ describing the work as “a tremendous step forward in understanding the architecture of the plant wall.” Further information, click here

Dr. David Connah and Professor Graham Finlayson from the School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia have won a pathfinder award from the Iceni Seedcorn Fund to develop a technical demonstrator of their image processing software.

The software developed in collaboration with Simon Fraser University (Canada) allows captured images containing many light frequencies to be displayed using the usual red/green/blue colours but without the loss of distinction between objects of similar shade. This lends itself particularly to satellite, medical or biological imaging where very small differences can be significant. The researchers are keen to collaborate with those using such images in their research. Further information, click here

Professor Finlayson is founder of former Norwich BioIncubator company Imsense. In a previous issue we reported their successes having expanded and moved to new premises.

Academics from the University of East Anglia’s Health & Social Sciences Research Institute and a team from the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital working in the Colorectal Unit have received over £207,000 of funding from the NHS National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) for an 18 month project. The study will focus on evaluating information given to patient prior to surgery and recommendations will be shared across the NHS. The aim is to reduce anxiety and time in hospital of patients facing bowel surgery. Further information, click here

The Norwich Research Park was created by the then existing partners over a decade ago. However, over the past 12 months or so the Park’s partners together with their main stakeholders (see end of article) have been in discussions about the vision for its future. These discussions have led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The MoU commits the partners and stakeholders to developing a combined and coherent research strategy that builds on their existing world leading research strengths and to build an outstanding ‘next generation’ science park of health, science and technology related businesses.

The core science strengths have been incorporated into two broad alliances involving scores of research groups from across the Park:

Earth and Life Systems Alliance – which integrates the physical, life and social sciences to understand the earth’s environmental and eco- systems and to provide solutions for global climate change, sustainable agriculture and food & energy security

Food and Health Alliance – which combines biological, chemical and medical sciences to provide rigorous evidence in support of advice for life-long human health and novel solutions to combat chronic and infectious diseases

The Alliances will be strengthened further by the appointment of new University of East Anglia faculty members, Norwich Bioscience Institute project leaders and clinicians at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital whose research maps onto the science vision for the future development of the Alliances. Some new positions have already been advertised and appointments that map onto the Alliance visions have been made e.g. Prof Alastair Watson, Chair in Translational Medicine, Faculty of Health at the University from April 2010.

It is envisioned that by 2021 the Norwich Research Park will be a thriving community of research groups and high quality new businesses. The Park will be developed to international standards of sustainability and design, be fully accessible with public transport links and incorporate ancillary uses such as restaurants, accommodation, medical, educational, leisure and conference facilities. Access for business to the best quality, specialist, tailored expertise and knowledge on the Park will be facilitated and there will be improved access to and ability to recruit from the graduate employment base.

NRP Stakeholders: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, East of England Development Agency, Norfolk County Council, South Norfolk Council, Norwich City Council and the Greater Norwich Development Partnership.

Matthew Hills, NRP Office