It might take time, but with your list of clues you would probably be able to piece together your Lego set eventually. But in the case of protein folding, no supercomputer is powerful enough to make any significant advancement on its own. That’s where quantum computers come into play.
Manya Bhargava returns to the IMSE blog to continue exploring the protein folding problem. In her previous blog, she explained how AlphaFold (AI system) uses known structures to predict the structures of unknown proteins. However, any AI system relies heavily on experimentally obtained data. On this new blog entry, Manya explains how quantum computers help to advance the problem by providing new solutions.
We welcome back guest blogger, Manya Bhargava, to explain this year’s Chemistry Nobel Prize, awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, for the development of AlphaFold! Developed by Google DeepMind and EMBL-EBI, AlphaFold is an AI system that predicts protein structures.
Imagine you’ve just bought a new Lego set. You’re super excited to get started. You have the pieces arranged, and all you need are the instructions to tell you how to fit them together. But someone seems to have played an awful prank on you. Instead of instructions in the box, you find a long list of clues about how the blocks need to fit together. Blue blocks can only connect to yellow ones, flat bricks can only be on the top… and so on. You know what the final model should look like, but this sure makes it much harder to build!
In our previous blog (Future of Food: Exploring the Rise of Cultivated Meat), guest bloggers, Wynsee Lu and Mekumi Chan, told us about the potential of cultivated meat as a sustainable food option. As they read articles on the topic, they discovered this industry goes beyond standard cell culture. In fact, there are a lot of additional aspects to consider for cultivated meat. Lab-grown meat is a great example of how we need to have molecular understanding to effectively engineer new products. In this blog, they explore the diversity in this industry and its potential for growth.
The molecular origin of flavour
For consumers, the most important sensory characteristics of cultivated meats are the taste and texture compared to real meat. The main way industries have attempted to achieve the natural taste of meat within this sustainable food option is by mimicking the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction is the natural process that normal meats undergo when browning under heat to bring out aromas and flavours. Simultaneous chemical reactions between the amino acids and reducing sugars in the meat achieve the desired outcome. To mimic this, researchers use a temperature-sensitive flavour-switchable scaffold to enhance the aromatic properties of cultivated meats. This scaffold “switches on’ while cooking and the chemical reactions within it release crucial flavours to appease consumers. This is not the only way to reproduce the flavours of real meat and industries are developing new methods every day.
Over the summer, IMSE welcomes undergraduate students to spend a day working side to side with our Operations team. They help us explore new topics in the field of molecular science and engineering and design outreach activities. In August, Wynsee Lau (Medical Biosciences undergraduate) and Mekumi Chan (Biological Sciences undergraduate) combined their interest in scientific research and public engagement to write a blog. They chose to write aboutthe exciting potential of the cultivated meat field and situated it in thecontext of a well known event, the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Aiming for a gold medal in sustainability at the Olympics games
As we enjoy the last month of summer, the most memorable event of this season has to be the Paris Olympics. Whether it was memorable because of the unique opening ceremony, I’m sure we’ve all seen some TikTok of the Olympic village and Paris’ attempt for a more ‘sustainable’ games. One of Paris’ approaches was to half the amount of animal products compared to any other Olympics. Instead of meat, they introduce more plant-based foods. This decision led to a decrease in carbon emissions; however, there were also complaints from some of the athletes. What can future Olympic hosts do to cut down these alarming carbon emissions whilst also fueling the athletes with the appropriate nutrients needed? In the growing industry of biotechnology, many startups are investigating the possibility of growing meat in the lab.
If you had access to a 3D printer, what would you print? Something fun, something useful? How about both?
Alex Christopherson, a final year undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London and David Samuel, an artist based in Park Royal Design Studios, collaborated to create a 3D printed sculpture that doubles as a microscope and allows you to see a 3D printed Queens Tower 100,000 times smaller than the real one! Engineering and art coming together to 3D print a sculpture.
The Great Exhibition Road Festival is Imperial’s largest public engagement event of the year. Taking place over a full weekend, Imperial runs the festival together with the local museums (V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Royal College of Music and Royal Albert Hall). Great exhibition road is closed to traffic and becomes full of people. Visitors from all ages and backgrounds engage in diverse activities featuring science and the arts during the celebrations. Over 54,000 people pre-registered for this year’s event!
Exhibition road, closed to traffic and open to people for the Great Exhibition Road Festival. Image credit: David Guttridge.
Imperial researchers spent the weekend running their stands and answering questions from the curious attendees. Georgia Millsom, a PhD student in the Department of Materials, wrote a blog about her experience volunteering at the event.
The Science and Engineering Research for Cultural Heritage Network (SERCH) ran an exhibit at the Great Exhibition Road Festival back in mid-June. Ranging from Mechanical Engineering to Materials, a variety of Imperial’s departments were present with the aim of demonstrating the connections Imperial has to Cultural Heritage. Visitors were also able to delve into a range of objects from the Imperial College Archives. Many hadn’t considered Imperial’s own heritage before as it is a newer university than Oxford, Cambridge, and St Andrews. The teaching aids were hugely popular, with visitors guessing about their uses.
Over summer, IMSE welcomes undergraduate students to spend a day working side to side with our Operations team. They help us explore new topics in the field of molecular science and engineering and draft questions for upcoming podcasts. In July, Polly Dean (Biology) and Manya Bhargava (Physics) combined their interest in plant science, quantum physics and genetics to write a blog exploring the interaction between these fields and the wide range of applications.
Quantum mechanics is a branch of Physics which describes the behaviour of subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons). Genetic engineering is a method in Biology research which alters an organism’s characteristics by manipulating its genetic material. Despite their different definitions, both influence processes that control molecular interactions. Bringing together their knowledge on Biology and Physics, Polly and Manya explored examples where the combination of both disciplines (quantum and genetics) is solving global grand challenges. These include applying molecular aspects of photosynthesis to renewable energy systems, and increasing our understanding of immune responses for vaccine development.
Earlier this June, people at Imperial College London had the opportunity to hear from a scientist who affected all our lives, Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert from the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford. The Department of Life Sciences hosted Prof Gilbert for the Sir Ernst Chain lecture, a celebration of the late biochemist who developed the techniques to isolate and produce Penicillin, together with Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming.
Prof Gilbert works on viral vector vaccines. In 2020 she led the group who, together with Astra Zeneca, developed and produced one of the Covid-19 vaccines. The Oxford/Astra Zeneca (ChAdOx1 nCov-19) vaccine was used in 180 countries. It is estimated to have saved over 6 million lives in the first year it was used!
Our guest blogger, Arabella Heath wrote a blog post about her talk and how combination of molecular science and engineering was crucial for vaccine development in a pandemic.
Last April, Arabella Heath, a Biochemistry undergraduate student, and Mia Hughes, a Chemistry undergraduate, joined IMSE for a day to experience the work environment in an Operations team. Together, they explored the topic of antimicrobial resistance and how we can keep antibiotics working by combining molecular science and engineering research. Coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago, the U.K. government updated its strategy to tackle antimicrobial resistance for the next 5 years. In this blog, Arabella and Mia explore how the surface of insect wings is inspiring innovation on antimicrobial ‘smart’ surfaces to reduce bacterial infections in hospitals.
The prevalence of antimicrobial resistance
Summer is approaching, and we are all dreading the familiar sound of insects buzzing that accompanies the season. But who knew that studying some insects like cicadas and dragonflies might hold the key to tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR)? AMR occurs when antimicrobial treatment is no longer effective at treating bacteria, viruses, fungi and other parasites. It leads to increased infections rates and severe illnesses. AMR is a major threat for the development of global public health. AMR caused an estimated 1.27 million deaths in 2019 worldwide and this is set to rise to 10 million by 2050. This issue requires new and innovative solutions because evolving bacteria are outsmarting our current available antibiotics.
How Antibiotic Resistance happens. Image credit: Lumen learning.
Following on our blogs exploring circular economy and zero waste, we welcome our new guest blogger, Dr. Antonio Ovejero-Perez. A postdoc from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Antonio’sresearch is focused on extracting dyes from textiles waste.
Who hasn’t heard a family member say: “Back in the day, I only got new clothing for Christmas or birthday”? Now, in our fast-paced world things have changed. How many times a year do we buy clothes? Trends come and go quickly, and “fast fashion” has become more and more popular.
