ASE Annual Conference 2018

Solar energy is abundant but intermittent. We aim to use sunlight to generate fuels that can be stored and used when required. The only inputs are light, carbon dioxide and water! In this talk I will outline my research on developing new materials that can efficiently produce carbon fuels from these abundant sources.

I am an Irish doctor, I did an MSc in Neuroscience during my medical degree and now I am doing a PhD on neurosurgical CSF infections. My research is aiming to improve the tests we have for brain surgery related meningitis.

Lupus nephritis (LN) is one of the most frequent complications of childhood-onset lupus, affecting up to 80% of young patients. As the role of the resident renal cells in LN is still largely unknown, the aim of my research is to investigate the role of the renal glomerular endothelial cells.

The Medicinal Chemistry Group at the University of Liverpool has the privilege of being involved in multiple projects which aim to provide new and improved therapies to treat several diseases within the developing world. Our research covers a range of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology areas focused on malaria, TB, filariasis and more recently the systemic fungal infection Cryptococcus neoformans. The talk will focus on two current projects within different disease areas (malaria and tuberculosis).

Due to circumstances beyond our control this session has been cancelled.

In the UK, the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) adopt a risk based approach to determine who can obtain a driving license either as a new driver, or following an incapacitating medical event.  The guidelines for driving following a first seizure (fit) require the risk of another seizure in the next 12 months to be less than 20%. But how long, after a first unprovoked seizure, must a driver be seizure-free before they fall below this risk and can therefore regain their driving license? 

How can we help farmers and vets to make more efficient use of new data and their existing practical experience?

Computer scientists, nanoscientists, and engineers are more and more joining their forces towards the realisation of Programmable Matter, that is, matter that can algorithmically change its physical properties. They have already produced some first impressive outcomes. These include programmed DNA molecules that self-assemble into desired structures and large collectives of tiny identical robots that orchestrate resembling a single multi-robot organism. In parallel, an interesting theory is being developed to support this vision. Ambitious, long-term applications include molecular computers, collectives of nanorobots injected into the human circulatory system for monitoring and treating diseases, or even self-reproducing and self-healing machines. In this talk, we shall give an overview of this rapidly growing research area and discuss a recent, related initiative.

A top-to-toe solution for switched reluctance motor (SRM) in electrical vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electrical vehicles (HEVs). This talk introduces the application of switched reluctance motors (SRM) in electrical vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electrical vehicles (HEVs). For SRM based EV/HEV application, there are three basic challenges: efficiency, reliability and performance. In this lecture, we give our solutions to those challenges. For efficiency, we proposed charging without charging-station solution, and integrated topology for HEV; for reliability, we proposed fault-tolerance topology, and phase current reconstruction technology; for performance, we improved SRM structure and improve direct torque control.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, this session has been cancelled.

Nanomedicine is the use of tiny, nanoscale materials for medical applications. Such materials have been shown to give considerable benefits in healthcare, including reduced side effects and improved clinical outcomes. This talk will explore the public’s perception of nanomedicine, will explain why nanoscale materials differ from bulk materials and will also discuss some of the interesting properties of nanoscale materials. I will then examine some examples of current nanomedicine technologies as well as those that are being developed for the future.

Optical techniques are widely used for diagnostics in clinical settings, however the majority of optical bio-sensing and imaging techniques use large and expensive systems which are often complex to operate. Advances in microelectronics and optoelectronics allows the miniaturization of many of these techniques into so called Lab-on-a-chip devices, which tend to be portable, simple to use and low cost.

I will discuss how loss of control is a key issue in the development and maintenance of heavy drinking. Factors which might lead to the loss of control include internal (stress and arousal) as well as environmental (exposure to alcohol-related cues). Strategies to reduce drinking will also be considered.

Recreational drug use is seen at higher levels in those with poor mental health than in the general population. But understanding what this means is much more challenging. Do these drugs increase the risk of poor mental health, are people using drugs to self-medicate, or do other factors influence both? I will discuss the challenges of trying to conduct this research, and new methods being used to try and untangle these issues.

Porous materials are important in applications such as separations and gas storage, for example, the capture of greenhouse gases or the removal of harmful contaminants. Our research is centred around one class of these - porous organic cages. These cages are individual molecules containing an internal, permanent hole which is accessible through windows. Unlike other porous materials which are often large frameworks, the individual nature of these cages makes them soluble. The fact that these cages are soluble means that we can direct their assembly into larger 3D structures, and by changing their shape, we can also change the assembled structure - like molecular Lego! This assembly forms connected channels, making the materials porous - in fact, as little as one gram of cage can have the same surface area of 7 tennis courts! Using examples from our research, we will show how these cages can be computationally designed, how they are made, and how they can be used in a range of real-world applications. For example, we are investigating the use of our cages in the capture and separation of gases (for example xenon, which is used in medical imaging and anaesthesia, and hazardous radioisotopes which can be released into the environment via nuclear accidents), and porous liquids - a new counter-intuitive material comprising a liquid with holes! We can also modify our cages for the removal of formaldehyde which causes cancer, leukaemia, asthma and reproductive problems.

A tiling of a shape is a way of splitting the shape into smaller shapes. If the smaller shapes are all the same, the tiling is called monohedral. We will present new monohedral tilings of the disk. This talk is suitable for a general audience.

Photosynthesis is vital to Earth’s climate, extracting CO2 from the atmosphere as plants grow, and producing oxygen. Of the total amount of photosynthesis on our planet, half of it occurs in plants that grow in the ocean – but what are these plants, and what challenges do they have to overcome compared to their terrestrial counterparts?