Posted in Biochemistry, Covid-19, Glycobiology, Scientific progress, tagged Liverpool, research, science on March 15, 2020|
E-mail I sent out to the research group today.
Dear All,
From now on we really do need to reduce lab work and enforce strictly social distancing, something we stated last week.
The first transmissions from Scousers who picked up the virus on match night (bars, clubs, hotels) from Athletico fans will occur this coming week and next week; we will then get F2, F3 (F number related to contact: primary = F1, a contact’s contact = F2 etc.) transmission. (more…)
Posted in Biochemistry, Glycobiology, Science process, Scientific progress, Viruses, tagged heparan sulphate, heparin, research, SARS-CoV-2, science, Universities on March 3, 2020| 1 Comment »
Thursday last week (Feb 27) Mark was up from Keele and popped his head around my office door – not a surprise, as he is often here to do circular dichroism on various heparin-binding proteins – to announce that Marcelo had managed to make some SARS-CoV-2 S1 receptor binding domain. Mark had asked Hao, my postdoc, to do some SPR measurements to see if it bound heparin.
Later in the day I went over to the SPR/CD lab to find Courtney, Mark’s PhD student and Mark beavering away on the CD. A quick discussion. Hao had finished some work on our first grade A heparin functionalised SPR surface, so we set about injecting the SARS-CoV-2 surface protein (Spike) S1 Receptor Binding Domain – a one shot experiment, as amounts of protein were limited, so we injected 1 mL at 500 µL/min (I like high flow rates as mixing is way better, though still far from perfect).
Bingo. (more…)
Ferniglab Blog 