Joe Publications

ChemComm: Terbium-based lectin sensors

Congratulations to Karolina on her first article published in Chemical Communications. The article has been included in the HOT Articles 2023 Collection as well as a themed collection on Chemosensors and Molecular Logic (related to last year’s MSMLG Conference). The work was considered exciting by the editors and so was featured on the Front Cover of the journal issue.

We describe glycoconjugate terbium(III) complexes, which are able to detect carbohydrate-binding proteins in aqueous buffer solution. When the carbohydrate motif on the complex matches the target of the protein, an enhancement in lanthanide luminescence is observed. The bacterial lectin LecA (from P. aeruginosa) is one of the detected proteins.

Sensing behaviour of complexes Tb.3. See article for full description of results

This work was funded by Science Foundation Ireland (18/SIRG/5501), with support from a 4th year project student, and our collaborators in TU Dublin (Gordon Cooke) and University of Saarland (Alexander Titz, HZI/HIPS). The interdisciplinary work includes synthesis of new sensor molecules, biological assessment and examination of their lectin binding affinity. We believe this work could lead to the development of tools which could use detection of characteristic proteins from pathogens as a means for diagnosis, and hope to follow up on this in future publications.

Joe Conferences, Outreach

Irish Chemistry Colloquium in Galway

Members of the group attended the annual Institute of Chemistry of Ireland event, hosted this year in Galway on 14-15 May 2023. Joe was a judge for the student awards at this event, and – as advisor to the ICI Young Chemists Network – had various meetings about the future direction of the organisation for young chemists. Several new committee members joined the YCN over the course of the Colloquium.

Joe Team

Group meeting at UCD and lunch

For the first time since the group moved to UCD, we had an in-person meeting of members from Galway and UCD. Karolina was returning from a research stay in Grenoble (funded by the French embassy in Ireland) and updated us on some exciting results, which Thomas, Hannah and Wanyujin gave updates on their work. Afterwards we went out for lunch at UCD Village to talk about future plans.

Joe Conferences

Joe speaks at “Inorganic Ireland”

Joe delivered an oral presentation at the annual Inorganic Ireland Symposium in Trinity College Dublin on 18 May 2023. In his talk, “Carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes: targeting
pathogens for therapeutic and sensing applications”, he spoke about the latest work from the group in using metal complexes to target bacteria and fungi. At this symposium, Prof. Thorri Gunnlaugsson, Joe’s PhD advisor, was presented the ICI David Browne Award and also delivered a talk, including some of Joe’s work from his PhD among the vast array of other work across his career, leading to this recognition. The UCD-based members of the group also attended the lectures and engaged in the question and answer sessions.

Joe Conferences

Hannah and Joe attend COST Meetings in Romania and Greece

Hannah attended the International Meeting of Young Researchers hosted by InnoGly and GlycoNanoProbes COST Actions in Iasi, Romania in April and presented a talk on Carbohydrate-Functionalised Materials. Joe was part of the organising committee for this meeting, as well.

A few weeks later, in May, Joe spoke at the Closing Meeting of the InnoGly COST Action in Heraklion, Greece, a two-day interdisciplinary symposium of carbohydrate and glycan research, particularly focussed on the role of glycans in health and immunity. His presentation on carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes prompted some interesting discussions with scientist from other disciplines.

Hannah speaking in Iasi
International Meeting of Young Researchers attendees
Lunch at InnoGly Closing Meeting
Attendees at Closing Meeting in Heraklion
Joe news, Team

Joe moves to UCD as Lecturer in Bioinorganic Chemistry

In January 2023, Joe joined the Faculty of UCD School of Chemistry as Lecturer in Bioinorganic Chemistry, and the Byrne Group will be moving to Dublin as well. This is a fantastic opportunity to grow the research group into the future and build on the SFI Starting Investigator Research Grant. Joe is very grateful to colleagues at NUI Galway for all their support in the last few years as he built independence – this was vital to securing his first academic post.

Dr Hannah Crory will also join the team at UCD and new PhD student Thomas Rabbitte, and we will be based in the Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry Lab in Science Centre South alongside the Phillips and Hooper Groups. Joe is one of 4 new Faculty members joining UCD at this time, part of an expanding team in the School of Chemistry (pictured below).

New staff at UCD: Dr Leila Negahdar, Dr Aniello Palma, Dr Joe Byrne, Dr Nadia Elgobashi-Meinhardt
Joe Uncategorized

Christmas lunch!

We brought the year to a close with a Christmas group lunch in Hyde, Galway. We also celebrated the completion of the fourth year undergraduate research projects. Shivon Karundu, who carried out her project in our lab celebrated with classmates at the research poster session in the School. Well done on a productive year!

Joe Awards, Outreach, Team

Rosy wins a prize in Threesis Contest

Rosy won second place in the 2022 Threesis Contest, where researchers present their thesis to a lay audience in 3 slides and 3 minutes. Dozens of PhD students from every school in University of Galway competed in this long-running Science Communication challenge this year, including Rosy and Karolina. Rosy’s talk, titled “Tumours play hide and seek; how do we win?” was received very well by the judges and audience and was a well-deserved prize winner. Well done, Rosy. You can watch a video of her contribution below.

Rosy is a PhD student in Luca Ronconi’s group at University of Galway, co-supervised by Joe since 2021. Her research is into lanthanide complexes conjugated to targeting biomolecules. Her research is funded by the Irish Research Council, and previously by a Hardiman Scholarship.

Rosy wins her award
Luca Ronconi, Rosy Polisicchio, Joe Byrne
All the finalists for the 2022 Threesis Contest
Joe Conferences, Presentations, Team

RSC Carbohydrate Meeting in Belfast and first SugarCoat Team Meeting

Members of the team attended the RSC Carbohydrate Interest Group Annual Meeting at Queens University Belfast. Joe gave an oral presentation in the Great Hall. There were many interesting international speakers including Alexander Titz and Ulf Nilssen, as well as contributors from the UK and Ireland. The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland also (Division on Medicinal Chemistry), making it an excellent all-island event. Thanks to Gerd Wagner and Aisling Ní Cheallaigh, among others, for organising.

This meeting also gave an opportunity for the first in-person meeting of the full team of the SugarCoat North South Research Programme project – funded by the Shared Island Fund and the HEA. Postdoc Dr Hannah Crory has been working in the Wylie/McCoy lab in the School of Pharmacy, QUB.