Coming to LINXS proved very fruitful - Richard Hopkinson, guest researcher with ChemLIife
Richard Hopkinson spent some very productive months at LINXS.
Richard Hopkinson spent May and June at LINXS as a guest researcher with the Chemistry of Life theme. Having time to fully immerse himself in research, as well as meeting many new people proved very fruitful on both a professional and personal level.
– There is often little time for research during term time, so being able to go away and focus on grant applications and papers was really great, says Richard Hopkinson, Associate Professor in Chemical Biology at the Institute for Structural and Chemical Biology, LISCB, University of Leicester.
During this stay at LINXS, he not only collaborated and deepened contacts with people within his own theme, he also gave lectures, attended events, and met with people at different Lund University departments, and at the University of Copenhagen.
Outcome: position in the AMBER programme
One very concrete outcome from his visit was that he and his colleagues in the UK were able to announce a specific postdoc position as part the EU-funded postdoctoral project AMBER, Advanced Multiscale Biological imaging using European Research infrastructures, coordinated by LINXS. The position will focus on profiling disease-relevant chemical modifications to the protein cysteinome. He also forged collaborations with researchers from Lund and Copenhagen, with whom he shares similar research interests.
– I’m a chemist by training, but a lot of our research has a biological focus, so I’m trying to work with people who are trained in that field, as well as with people who are experts on various spectroscopic methods, including X-ray and neutron techniques. Together, we can approach problems from many perspectives.
Collaborate on research on formaldehyde
His own research is particularly focused on understanding the behavior of the cancer-causing toxic metabolite, formaldehyde, – and he will now pursue this area further with researchers in Lund and Copenhagen.
Richard explains that many people might be familiar with formaldehyde since it is not only produced by our bodies, in every single cell, it is also a pollutant in our environment. He is interested in trying to find out how it causes disease in certain situations. His theory is that there are important reasons as to why the body produces formaldehyde – its high chemical reactivity suggests it might have ‘healthy’ as well as disease-relevant roles.
– The big challenge is to identify methods to detect and analyse formaldehyde in the cells. As it stands now, formaldehyde can be linked to many different cancers but we don’t know the concentrations at which formaldehyde causesharmful effects. It is also very reactive which makes it a challenge to work with.
The next step is to delve deeper into these questions through the collaborations forged during his stay at LINXS. It will involve the design of various experiments, drawing on his own expertise in chemical processes and formaldehyde biochemistry, knowledge of biology, and X-rays and neutron research.
Important to focus on students for long lasting collaborations
While he is glad that his stay garnered many positive outcomes on a professional level, Richard also reflects that it is important for both the Chemistry of Life theme and LINXS to pursue longer lasting and larger collaborations to really cement the relationship between LINXS and Leicester. They can ideally take the form of postdoctoral fellowship programmes like AMBER or joint PhD-programmes.
– To have significant impact with our theme, we need to get younger researchers invested in our work through formal funding. I think this is absolute key!
– In turn, these students will be able to spend time in many different institutions, where they get to learn new skills, while also producing preliminary data. This data can then be used to build larger grant programs, enabling us to build a truly collaborative environment, in spirit with both LINXS and the Institute for Structural and Chemical Biology.