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来支持利兹大学的工程和物理科学研究，具体来说，该设备支持利兹布拉格材料研究中心和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成立是为了汇集在原子和分子水平上设计的材料的发现、创造、表征和开发方面的跨校园专业知识，它将提供新的设备和系统来满足这一要求。它将坐落在威廉·亨利·布拉格爵士大楼内，该大楼由大学投资 9600 万英镑。阿斯特伯里结构分子生物学中心汇集了来自各个领域的研究人员。例如，与这一呼吁相关的物理科学、工程、生物学和医学的目标是了解生命的分子细节，研究人员正在开发工具和技术来了解与癌症相关的酶（激酶）如何与其他蛋白质相互作用。活性氧在我们的细胞内是如何管理的，错误是如何导致疾病的，以及我们如何用化学方法模仿自然的进化过程来开发新的治疗分子，如抗生素。这些仪器将提供新的或增强的功能，使研究人员能够准备、表征和操纵分子、超分子组装体和复杂复合材料，提供新的见解，从而产生有影响力的研究成果，并通过在国际公认的期刊上发表等方式进行传播。它们还将使我们能够与工业合作伙伴进行更广泛的合作，以解决现有问题。商业相关领域的问题，并推动采用利兹研究产生的新技术，创造新产品和新工艺。这四项具体设备是：1) 用于原位电子显微镜的显微操作器：利兹是领先的电子显微镜中心英国的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，并可以实时研究材料在受力或压痕等情况下发生的情况。添加低温（冷）平台可以研究乳剂和生物材料。2) 物理科学分子分离/纯化：高效液相色谱 (HPLC) 可以从复杂混合物中分离分子种类。例如，在生物相关分子（天然、合成或半合成）的研究中至关重要。分析型 HPLC 仪器可在制备过程中对复杂混合物进行表征。 HPLC 使用质谱法促进从混合物中自动纯化所需分子。3) 适用于颗粒、大分子和生物物理科学的流场流分级分离：不对称流场流分级分离是一种色谱技术，允许基于尺寸的表征和分析纯化超出分子尺度（纳米到微米）的材料，例如纳米颗粒、超分子组装体（例如脂质囊泡）和生物分子复合物（例如这很重要，因为这些物种/组合体的特性通常会随着尺寸的变化而发生显着变化。4) 用于软物质和生物物理的流变仪：流变测量是研究软材料的特性如何响应所施加的力而变化的。对于研究生物分子行为（例如用于诊断和治疗应用的修饰生物分子、新型功能凝胶、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。