Multi-user Equipment at the University of Leeds

利兹大学的多用户设备

• 批准号: EP/V035460/1
• 负责人: Nick Plant
• 金额: $ 136.59万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FV035460%2F1
• 关键词: Multi; user; Equipment; University; Leeds

The award delivers multi-user equipment to support research across engineering and physical sciences at the University of Leeds. Specifically, the equipment underpins major cross-disciplinary research within the Bragg Centre for Materials Research and the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at Leeds.The Bragg Centre for Materials Research has been established to bring together cross-campus expertise in the discovery, creation, characterization and exploitation of materials engineered at the atomic and molecular level. It will provide new devices and systems to meet 21st century challenges in, for example, medical diagnostics, communications, battery technologies and sensors. It will be housed within the Sir William Henry Bragg building, a £96M capital investment from the University.The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology brings together researchers in physical sciences, engineering, biology and medicine with the goal of understanding life in molecular detail. Relevant to this call, for example, researchers are developing tools and techniques to understand how cancer-related enzymes (kinases) interact with other proteins, how reactive oxygen species are managed within our cells and how mistakes can lead to disease, and how we can chemically mimic nature's evolution processes to develop new therapeutic molecules such as antibiotics.The instruments will provide new or enhanced capabilities that will enable researchers to prepare, characterise and manipulate molecules, supramolecular assemblies and complex composites, delivering new insights which will lead to impactful research outcomes, disseminated for example through publication in internationally-recognised journals. They will also allow us to collaborate more widely with industrial partners to solve existing problems in commercially-relevant areas and to drive the uptake of new technologies arising from research at Leeds, creating new products and processes.The four specific items of equipment are:1) Micromanipulators for In Situ Electron Microscopy: Leeds is a leading centre for electron microscopy in the UK. The micromanipulator is a versatile tool that can be attached to existing electron microscopes and allows the real-time study of what happens to materials when they are e.g. placed under force or indented with sub-micrometre precision. The addition of a cryogenic (cold) platform allows the study of emulsions and biological materials.2) Molecular Separation/Purification for Physical Sciences: high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) allows the separation of molecular species from complex mixtures and is vital in, for example, the study of biologically-relevant molecules (natural, synthetic or semi-synthetic). An analytical HPLC instrument will allow the characterisation of complex mixtures while the preparative HPLC uses mass-spectrometry to facilitate the automated purification of desired molecules from the mixtures.3) Flow Field-Flow Fractionation for Particulate, Macromolecular and Biophysical Sciences: asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation is a chromatographic technique that allows the size-based characterisation and purification of materials beyond the molecular scale (nanometer to micrometer) such as nanoparticles, supramolecular assemblies such as lipid vesicles and complexes of biomolecules such as proteins. This is vital, since the properties of these species/assemblies often vary critically and dramatically with size.4) Rheometer for Soft Matter and Biological Physics: rheometry is the study of how properties of soft materials change in response to applied forces. This is essential to applications such as studying the behaviour of biomolecules such as modified biomolecules for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, new functional gels, liquid crystalline materials for displays and sensors, and colloidal materials within foods.

该奖项提供多用户设备，以支持利兹大学的工程和物理科学研究。具体来说，该设备支持布拉格材料研究中心和利兹的阿斯特伯里结构分子生物学中心的主要跨学科研究。布拉格材料研究中心的建立是为了汇集跨校园的专业知识，在原子和分子水平上设计材料的发现、创造、表征和开发。它将提供新的设备和系统，以满足世纪的挑战，例如，医疗诊断，通信，电池技术和传感器。它将被安置在威廉爵士亨利布拉格大楼，从大学£ 96 M资本投资。该阿斯特伯里中心结构分子生物学汇集了物理科学，工程，生物学和医学的研究人员与分子细节理解生命的目标。例如，与这一呼吁相关的是，研究人员正在开发工具和技术，以了解癌症相关酶（激酶）如何与其他蛋白质相互作用，活性氧如何在我们的细胞内管理，以及错误如何导致疾病，以及我们如何在化学上模拟自然界的进化过程，以开发新的治疗分子，如抗生素。这些仪器将提供新的或增强的能力，研究人员可以制备，组装和操纵分子，超分子组装和复杂的复合材料，提供新的见解，这将导致有影响力的研究成果，例如通过在国际公认的期刊上发表文章进行传播。这也将使我们能够更广泛地与工业合作伙伴合作，解决商业相关领域的现有问题，并推动利兹研究中产生的新技术的吸收，创造新的产品和工艺。四个具体的设备项目是：1）原位电子显微镜显微操作器：利兹是英国领先的电子显微镜中心。显微操作器是一种多功能工具，可以连接到现有的电子显微镜上，并允许实时研究材料在受力或以亚微米精度压痕时会发生什么。2）物理科学的分子分离/纯化：高效液相色谱（HPLC）可从复杂混合物中分离分子种类，在生物相关分子（天然、合成或半合成）的研究等方面至关重要。分析型HPLC仪器将允许复杂混合物的表征，而制备型HPLC使用质谱法以促进从混合物中自动纯化所需分子。3）用于颗粒、大分子和生物物理科学的流场流分级：不对称流场流分馏是一种色谱技术，可以对超出分子尺度的材料进行基于尺寸的表征和纯化（纳米至微米），如纳米颗粒、超分子组装体如脂质囊泡和生物分子如蛋白质的复合物。这是至关重要的，因为这些物种/组件的属性往往会随着尺寸的变化而发生严重和显着的变化。4）软物质和生物物理流变仪：流变学是研究软材料的属性如何响应所施加的力而变化。这对于研究生物分子的行为，如用于诊断和治疗应用的改性生物分子，新的功能凝胶，用于显示器和传感器的液晶材料以及食品中的胶体材料等应用至关重要。