10692 A4 Broadcast Newsletter_aw

MDC BROADCAST J U L Y 2 0 1 9

DS&T Snapshot: Immunohistochemistry PAGE 3

PAGE

PAGE 7

superhero tips Social media

PAGE 1 4

PAGE 10

Team Focus

Simpson to Simpson

MDC Broadcast July Newsletter WENEED YOU

Kevin shares a brief introduction to immunohistochemistry (IHC). Giving us an insight intowhat he’s getting up to in his Molecular Pathology laboratory. For anyonewhowants to find outmore, Kevin is very happy to showyou around his Block 3 home. DS&T Snapshot

CHALLENGE

This newsletter could do with a new name that reflects the great things that you all do. So, wewould like YOU (yes, YOU) to help choose one for us. After all, it’s your newsletter. To enter your suggestion click here.

This newsletter exists for YOU and we want to make sure it is giving you what you need. You are a bright bunch and this newsletter will only be its best with your input.

What are you working on? I am using the Leica BOND platform to develop a repertoire of automated immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in situ hybridisation (ISH) assays. Why are you working on it? Although MDC offers some excellent cutting-edge technologies to our SME partners, IHC is often still regarded as the gold standard when it comes to target distribution, efficacy, safety and patient selection studies. IHC will be used in partnership with the new technologies to help validate them, to provide assurance of their accuracy, and to add valuable information. For example, we are using IHC to characterise cultured microglia cells to ascertain their maturity, activity, and subtype. How do you do it? Antibody and assay validation are essential to ensure the legitimacy of the data produced. We can utilise cultured cells, organoids and spheroids, or healthy and diseased tissues during the process. The validation will assess many factors, such as specificity, sensitivity, dynamic range, signal: noise ratio and reproducibility. The validation package will be tailored to the intended use of the assay. The validation for an assay that may become a diagnostic, prognostic or patient-selective test will be extensive and may take a year or more to complete. The package for a ‘quick look-see’ assay will be much lighter. Where is this applied? These assays can be deployed virtually anywhere along the drug discovery timeline: from target distribution to patient selection; from efficacy studies to GLP safety - anywhere where cells or tissues are important. IHC and ISH assays can provide vital information as stand-alone techniques or can add value in synergy with other technologies. IHC and ISH may have been around for a lot longer than the newer, cool technologies also offered by MDC, but they remain relevant and still have a lot to offer.

We’ll then put the ideas to a public vote and there will be a small prize (hint – it rhymes with schmocolate) on offer for the winning suggestion.

Quick-fire July highlights

DS&T

Opening the Molecular Pathology laboratory in Building 3 to enable high-quality tissue processing and staining. Maia, our Year in Industry student, and Dela, our CASE Ph.D. student, presenting scientific posters at ‘Microbubbles 2019’ in Leeds. Martin Main speaking on ’Advanced Cellular Models in Medicines Discovery: Challenges and Opportunities’ at Waters Innovation Summit.

Syndicates

Finance

Procurement

Being awarded the contract for the Platform for Sensitive Protein Quantification. This platformwill complement our ever- growing biomarker capabilities portfolio. Allowing us to offer our collaborators and customers the chance to quantify proteins in samples with unprecedented sensitivity, exceeding the currently available leading methods up to 1000-fold.

Launching the Psychiatry Consortium with a bang! Off to a great start, there was good coverage in key trade media and a successful digital marketing campaign generated buzz, resulting in several early positive leads. This positions us nicely for September when we will launch the first call for project submissions. Exhibiting at the British Association of Psychopharmacology conference, much interest was generated amongst academics. Growing the team by 50% as Programme Manager, Kieran Prior joined the team.

Welcoming Sam, Management Accountant, to the team. Introducing the new, more efficient, finance project model that allows the team to capture all project data in one place and provide high-level analytics.

Informatics

Legal

Welcoming Software Engineer, Nick Etherington to the team.

Project Management

Hosting Aidan Simpson , who was an absolute pleasure to have in the MDC team for a week as part of his school work experience. See the inside scoop fromAidan’s interviewwith Peter later in this newsletter.

Virtual R&D

Submitting a 71 page Project Portfolio Management (PPM) tender document against a tight deadline, while delivering over 50 active projects within the team. Reaching full capacity within the teamwith the addition of Marc Bradford.

Graeme taking part in the Northern IUK ICURe innovation roundabout panel in Belfast, a competition to choose postdoc-led innovative biotech projects for support and funding.

2

3

TEAM FOCUS Marc D MDC Broadcast July Newsletter

takeson the Alps

Rising Star Angela has completed her Legal Practice Course (LPC), passing with distinction. FLYING HIGH

Mini Bedwell has arrived!

Tobias Louis John Bedwell, known as Toby, joined the world on 4th July weighing 6lbs 7oz. Lisa, Alex and Toby are all doing well.

Joy’s

WALKING CHALLENGE

What is the Haute Route Alpe d‘Huez? One of the most famous climbs in cycling, it is split over three days and includes: Mark completed the Haute Route Alpe d’Huez, a 3 day cycle stage race – based at Alpe d’Huez in the French Alps.

What is the challenge? The Cheshire Peak Challenge is a circular 20-mile hike in the Peak District that covers Shutlingsloe, Shining Tor and White Nancy. The walk combines over 3500ft of climbing with a total ascent of just 13ft more than the height of Snowdon. Why did you take it on?

Our former placement student, the one and only Will Townley, has achieved a 2:1 in his degree from the University of York. Will has also landed a job starting next month as a Cell Engineer at Lonza, in Cambridge.

How did you do? I placed 148th out of 232 participants and completed the time trial, which is an official Tour de France route, in 01:10:32. What was your highlight? My highlight was the descent of Croix de Fer. The climbs weren’t so great, but I absolutely smashed the descent!

Day 1: 12km - 3700m Day 2: 70km - 2900m Day 3: Time trial 13km - 1100m

I’ve always enjoyed hiking, and as I’m not interested in watching TV, I needed something to do in the evenings!

BENNY TIESTHE KNOT Congratulations to Benedetta and Alex for tying the knot in a beautiful ceremony in a gorgeous setting.

Congratulations to Lorna F and Chris on their recent engagement. JUST ENGAGED

How did you find out about the challenge? I found the walk in a book by Graham Beech called ‘East Cheshire Walks’. I didn’t do it for a charity or to raise money, I just did it to see if I could. I surprised myself that I have had no after-effects like muscle aches. I could quite happily do it again!

4

5

MDC Broadcast July Newsletter

CHECKOUT THE HUB The Hub is the place to go for any internal information you may need. It is our Intranet and should be your first stop for templates, documents, internal news, HR information, the employee directory and much more.

SOCIALMEDIA SUPERHEROTIPS

THOUGHTLEADERS

fromDan B

Helpful tip: Bookmark this page so you can always find it when you need it!

Chris speaks to Dominic Tyer, Creative and Editorial Director fromPharmaPhorum, about the UK environment for drug discovery, the impact of AI and the role of complex cell models.

So, how do you know who to follow on Twitter? There are a few ways to start finding relevant accounts. You can search for accounts using specific keywords or hashtags:

LISTEN HERE

The roleof the blood-brain barrier Author: Priya Viswanathan and Benedetta Arno A BLOG POST FROMOURWEBSITE By nature, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) was designed to protect the brain and the central nervous system (CNS) from toxins, inflammation, injury, and disease. The barrier is made up of highly specialised cells that strictly regulate the movement of molecules into the brain, only allowing essential nutrients and gases to pass

Check it out now at https://tinyurl.com/HubMDC

If you click on ‘People’ you’ll get accounts related to the topic you can try following. Also, the ‘Who to follow’ widget finds accounts similar to the ones you already follow.

into the CNS. The cells that line the barrier do this by expressing tight junctions and transporters that are unique to the CNS and make this barrier more selective than any other blood vessel in the body. READ FULL ARTICLE Why ElectronMicroscopy? Author: Stephen Muench

You’ll find it if you click on your Following number:

Other users often share lists of accounts they recommend following. These are great, the recommendations are personal and tend to be of higher quality. Also, look for articles called things like “The 20 people to follow in drug discovery”. The best thing to do is to try following a bunch of accounts, and occasionally have a cull if the accounts aren’t as relevant as you thought they might be.

A BLOG POST FROMOURWEBSITE 88% of the 210 drugs granted FDA approval between 2010 and 2016 were informed by structural biology. Traditionally, structural biology has been underpinned by X-ray crystallography

and to a lesser extent NMR. However, significant improvements in the field of Electron Microscopy e.g. (EM) has provided a powerful approach to studying protein structure. READ FULL ARTICLE

6

7

MDC Broadcast July Newsletter

Dates for your diary

Sunday 8th September: Old Trafford

Watch England take on Australia in day 5 of the Ashes. Speak to Martin for details.

Friday 30th August: Fosters Fish & Chip Friday Accept Ailsa’s invitation to join.

WHAT’STHATBANGING?

Upcoming events

The upstairs strip out and demolition works are progressing well. David and the Project Teamwould like to give a sincere thanks to everyone for their continued support during the works, and their patience while they make the unavoidable noise. We do hope the last fewweeks have not proved too disruptive and we will be in touch with some exciting developments soon.

7th August: Webinar: Chemical Genomics, John speaking 18th September: Bionow Precision Medicine Conference, Peter speaking 19th-20th September: Pharmacology and Drug Discovery Workshop, Sarah B speaking 23rd September: Safety Pharmacology Society Annual Meeting, Lyn speaking

8

9

MDC Broadcast July Newsletter

When Peter’s son Aidan came to spend a week with us, as part of his work experience, we thought we’d take the opportunity to get to know our Chief Scientific Officer a little better. Here’s what happened when Simpson sat down with Simpson, armed with some very carefully crafted questions for his father. KEEPINGIT INTHE FAMILY

What were your favourite subjects at school? The thing I always say that’s a bit weird is that I nearly didn’t do science because it took me a long time to fall in love with biology. I always liked English and I still like the communication aspects of science. But yes, I guess science in truth, but as I say I fell in love with biology slowly. But not PE and definitely not playing the recorder. What is your Hogwarts house? I have gone Ravenclaw in more recent times if I’m honest which I think is a safe and solid uncontroversial choice because Slytherin is too far. Ravenclaw is kind of cool but it’s not the coolest in the class. I think it’s just slightly edgy you know?! What book/movie/TV show have you read/watched recently that you would recommend? Well, I kind of want to sound a bit more intellectually challenging than just saying Avengers, even though that is the movie I last watched. This year Eighth Grade, and Bookemart, were good, interesting indie movies which I thought were worth watching which were a bit more challenging than the usual superhero ‘things that blow up’ movies. I guess in terms of books I would have to check my phone on what I last read but I recommend to everyone ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ because I think it is an inspiring, positive book that makes you feel better about life at the end of it. I am currently watching Jessica Jones because things blow up, and its Marvel. I’m reverting to type a little on that last bit. What advice would you give to your younger self? I suppose it would have to be: go for it, you never know what’s the worst that could happen. I guess what I sometimes look back on, and see in your younger self, is the opportunities that you missed. You hardly ever regret the things whereby you tried and failed because then you know. The analogy I always use is that nobody I know has ever regretted moving on from a job, or see that as a mistake, because you make a positive choice to do the next thing, rather than having someone make things happen to you. You’re in control of your destiny. You choose the next step. You choose your path. I think I would encourage my younger self, or you, to make bold choices and try things. Missing opportunities is what you regret. Making mistakes is always the least of your problems.

Teabreak withMalcolm

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to a dinner party who would they be? Donald Trump, Theresa May, Vladimir Putin - to see if they are truly as bad as we all think. If you were stranded on a desert island, what three items would you want to have with you? A lifetime supply of traditional lemon bonbons, my 1974 Citroen DS, and a Matchbox Cascade game (with batteries) If you were to create a slogan for your life, what would the slogan be? Let’s try that again!

What do you enjoy about your job? I always enjoy building things from scratch. One of the exciting things about joining MDC was that there was nothing much here when I joined. There were maybe 7 or so people in the basement and we had to make this into a world-class centre of excellence that impacts on UK drug discovery, from a standing start. I love that. I love the progress as we turn this strategy into reality. It is a privilege to design a department and a strategy on literally a piece of paper, in our computer room, then find the right people, and build the labs, and now it’s a company. People outside MDC now don’t see what it once was, but rather they see it as an impactful thing that always made sense to exist. I like envisioning a strategy, putting it into practice and I guess the third part is that the work I do helps people. When I used to work in Pharma, and I was in a certain type of mood, people asked me what I did for a living at a party and I used to say “I try and cure cancer; what do you do.” Underlying my (slightly passive-aggressive) tone there, is not just that I don’t really like parties, but also the sense that what we do that matters. We help people get newmedicines, so they don’t die, they live to see their granddaughter’s wedding, or to make up with their loved ones, because they live longer, and they live better. Having a job whereby you help people, even if curing people in a hospital is some steps removed from what we do, is a great privilege. The long-term consequences of what we do are that people are alive, that wouldn’t otherwise be alive.

Why did you go into science? When I was a teenager, we had a close family friend who got a serious illness - Huntington’s Disease - and I think that pushed me towards medical research. But I was never really interested in being a Doctor because the thought of prescribing pills that someone else had invented felt quite boring. However, the thought of discovering the pill - doing something that was scientifically interesting but at the same time helping As a family, we do a range of different things. We go to various theatre and musicals and make mosaics - things that are quite different from science and my job. Which three people in fiction or non- fiction, alive or dead would you want to be friends with? It would be cool if they were interesting and diverse, so David Attenborough to start with - wouldn’t everyone think he is cool to hang out with. On a similar note, Brian Cox would be interesting company. Then I guess the person who wrote Hamilton: Lin Manuel Miranda. That would be a good group to hang out with! If you weren’t working in science, what job would you be doing? I started off thinking about writing and I am still interested at some point in my life to stop and write a book, whether that’s a people - felt motivating to me. What is your favourite hobby?

novel or something more factual. It would be interesting to have the space and lack of financial pressure to stop and try doing that. That would be a fun thing to do. What are the most exciting developments in science right now for you? One of the things we are doing here is working out how to do drug discovery better. There are a lot of opportunities to test drugs in ways that we couldn’t do before. Technologies like CRISPR will make it possible for us to test drugs on the actual disease in a human cell to better predict whether it is going to work on an animal or a human. The capability to do relevant drug discovery in a dish that will be increasingly more like the human will be a big breakthrough for us. A completely different science thing with a Cheshire spin is the Square Kilometre Array - world-class science and data management that spans the globe. The centre of the Square Kilometre Array is in Cheshire, but the telescopes are going to be in the southern hemisphere across South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. They all must be synchronised within milliseconds for the data to be useful and then analysed. It is extraordinarily complex science that we all think is just a big telescope, but how do you get the data from three different countries to Cheshire, fully synchronised and then analysable. I like those big science problems thatmean youmust invent new solutions to them.

Tells us your favourite joke I was walking down the road the other day. Suddenly a man appeared. He threw some eggs at me. Then he threw some cheese at me. Finally, he threw two pints of milk at me.

I thought - How Dare He! (Hint: say this is out loud)

Overheard in the office Quote of the month: “I don’t have any colourful clothes, I’m colourful on the inside.” Anonymous.

10

11