Joe news, Publications

New publication: Metallodrugs in OBC

𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗴𝗹𝘆𝗰𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘀!
Delighted to have another article on glyco-metal complexes published in 𝘖𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤 & 𝘉𝘪𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺. This work was led by Karolina Wojtczak, PhD and involved contributions and support from lots of colleagues across disciplines including the teams of Trinidad Velasco-Torrijos, Anne Imberty, Gordon Cooke (TUD), Dr. Cristina Trujillo and Kevin Kavanagh who put lots of work into ideas, assays, measurements and calculations to support our hypotheses.

Please read the full article in the RSC journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, where it will be part of the 2025 New Talent Special Issue: https://doi.org/10.1039/D5OB00970G

Buíochas le Taighde Éireann Research Ireland as ucht tacaíocht.

Joe Conferences, news, Presentations, Team

Thomas & Joe speak at EuChemS-9, Sophie and Hannah present posters

Research from the group was presented in two oral presentations and two poster presentations which featured in the programme of ECC-9, held at Dublin Convention Centre 7-11 July 2024. This major European conference, the largest chemistry event ever held in Ireland, had more than 1500 delegates and a wide international audience.

On the Tuesday, Thomas presented his progress on “Self-templating mechanically interlocked systems as dual activity antimicrobial candidates”, as part of the Link4Lectin project, prompting several interesting discussions with leading supramolecular chemists in attendance. Joe presented “Carbohydrate-functionalised metal complexes: targeting pathogens for therapeutic and sensing applications” as part of the Chemistry Meets Biology for Health Theme on the Thursday.

All of the team attended the meeting, with Sophie and Hannah presenting posters on their work as part of the poster sessions, Wanyujin working as a conference volunteer, and Karolina also joined the conference representing her employer Sterling. Joe judged the posters in the Catalysis theme.

Joe Graduations, news, Team

Karolina defends her PhD thesis

Very proud of my very first PhD student Karolina Wojtczak who successfully defended her thesis last Thursday. A lot of hard work has paid off and she has left the group lots of interesting starting points for future projects (in addition to a few more imminent publications). Her thesis was titled “Metal-based glycoconjugates as molecular sensors for lectins and anti-adhesives”.

Karol was an absolute pleasure to have in my lab and I wish her all the best with her bright future. I’m sure she will achieve great things. Congratulations!

A great celebration was had in Galway to mark the occasion.

Thanks to Research Ireland (formerly SFI) (18/SIRG/5501) for financial support and Paul Murphy for co-supervising her, particularly after I moved to UCD last year.

Karol has already started a position as a Development Chemist in Sterling Pharma Solutions.

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

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 Outreach

May Outreach Activities

In May Karolina participated in two outreach events, talking about science to both adults and children alike! Pint of Science was held on the 11th of May in Massimo’s Bar in Galway. The first Pint of Science Festival to be held in person in two years was a sold-out event and over 50 people of all different backgrounds enjoyed Karol’s talk about antimicrobial resistance and how we can fight it using sugars, over a pint. 

The second event was the annual START Competition, held in NUI Galway on the 20th of May. An event geared towards primary school children in 4th, 5th and 6th class to mark the anniversary of the first documented randomised clinical trial in 1747, and learn more about all the different disciplines of science that make clinical trials possible. Karol along with her colleagues volunteered as part of Kitchen Chemistry to chat to students from three different schools and show them fun and safe experiments they can easily do in their kitchen. After lunch she also put on a show demonstrating how to make “elephant toothpaste” and the freezing power of liquid nitrogen with help from Darragh, Lamis and Hanka.