No turning back!

Happy May everyone! With a mere five weeks of Australian life left, things have suddenly got very, very scary at work. This morning, I submitted an abstract (a very brief summary of part of the research I’ve done here) to the Australian Society of Medical Research. I’ll find out next week whether they find it interesting enough to invite me to do a talk at the annual conference during my last week in Perth. For anyone interested in what I’ve been up to, here it is:

Calixarenes and calixarene-capped nanoparticles reduce reactive species induced by glutamate in neuronal cells in vitro

 Emma K Stephens¹  

¹Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences, School of Animal Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia.

 Traumatic injury to the central nervous system (CNS) has catastrophic and widespread effects on the survival and function of neurons and glia. The abnormal Ca²⁺ influx that occurs in response to injury is closely associated with increases in reactive species which, when ineffectively controlled by endogenous antioxidant mechanisms, culminate in oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a feature of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, making it a target for therapeutic strategies. Existing antioxidants that are effective in the treatment of CNS injury exhibit problems with solubility and additional antioxidants and/or delivery mechanisms are required to overcome these limitations. Nanomedicine is emerging as a therapeutic avenue that is capable of offering highly specific antioxidant drug delivery. Calix[n]arenes are a class of macrocyclic organic nanoparticle of 100nm diameter, where n represents the number of phenolic moieties arranged in a ring. Calix[4]arenes have been shown to deliver curcumin to stressed cells and also have inherent antioxidant properties, but the antioxidant effects of other calixarenes are unknown. Here we assess the effects of a range of calix[n]arene cyclic oligomers (designated SCn, PCn or CD), both alone and linked to silver nanoparticles, on the production of reactive species by neuronal-like PC12 cells exposed to glutamate stress. The indicator dichlorofluorescein diacetate was used to assess the presence of reactive species. We show that treatment with 1, 10 or 100μg mL^-1 calix[4]- and calix[6]arene preparations for 60 minutes significantly reduced the glutamate-induced increase in reactive species. The efficacy of SC4a, SC4b and SC6a was dependent on linkage to silver nanoparticles, whereas both the pure and nanoparticle-linked forms of SC4c, SC6b and SC6c significantly reduced reactive species. There was no significant reduction in reactive species after treatment with the SC8a/b/c, PC4 or CD preparations. We also demonstrate that the calix[n]arene preparations were not toxic to glutamate-stressed PC12 cells at the highest experimental concentration of 100μg mL^-1, with no significant effect on cell viability or morphology. In terms of future direction, it is worthwhile to assess the efficacy of these preparations as antioxidants in the treatment of neurotrauma in vivo.

This conference is a big deal. Part of the West Australian branch of ASMR’s Medical Research Week, it’s attended by hundreds of clinicians, academics and other professionals and covers not only neuroscience, but medical research as a whole. As someone who isn’t overly fond of public speaking at the best of times, the thought of presenting in front of a group of such reputable people fills me with dread and I’m not sure whether I’ll be chuffed or terrified if I get a talk. I’m glad that I’m not alone though; two others from team Lindy, Wissam and Ryan, have also submitted and the rest of the office will be attending the conference for moral support, which runs for one day in the first week of June. We’ll be doing a practice to the team in the week leading up to the big day, so I feel secure in the knowledge that Lindy won’t let me do it unless it’s good and I know it word for word. I’m telling myself that it’ll be an experience and it would definitely look good on my CV. All of this is presumptuous of the abstract being accepted of course!

Even if I don’t get accepted, the whole team has registered for the Gala Dinner on the Friday night following the conference, which also happens to be my last night in Australia! It’s a three-course formal dinner at the Hilton Hotel in the city, followed by the prize-giving (did I mention I could win $500 for my talk?!) and a dance. The lab is covering the cost and, from what I’ve heard of previous conferences, it’s a rare chance for us to see the more senior members of staff come out of their shells, have a few too many drinks and dance the night away, so it should be a lot of fun. I’ll have to be very careful with the wine though; my flight the following morning is at 6am, meaning I’ll have to be at the airport at 3am and up even earlier. I envisage myself getting next to no sleep as it is, so adding a hangover to a situation that already includes an 20-hour journey would just be foolish. The other option would be remaining drunk the entire time…

Aside from the conference, work currently consists of finishing the last few experiments that will generate preliminary data for the next Bath student’s project (you’re welcome love) and frantically writing up drafts of various chunks of my report, which I hope to finish before I leave so I don’t have to worry about it during the extra long summer I’ve been looking forward to forever. I’m pleased to say that, despite all going slightly mad from the pressure, my work friends and I are finding time to make the lab a little more bearable. Yesterday, I required help from Ryan to take some photos of my spinal cord injury technique for both my methods section and Lindy’s collaborative paper that I’ll be an author on. Needless to say, this descended into selfies within the space of five minutes! Ryan and Marcus are also currently enjoying repeating whatever I say in a cockney accent, which is both inaccurate and irritating, but in a good way. I fail to understand how such moronic individuals are currently doing their PhDs. I’m glad of the laughs though; god knows what would happen to us if we had to be serious all the time!

Mmmm, spinal cord

Post-it presents left on my lab book. My "favourite phrases"