18 February 2016: Knots in the news
The Oxford group's work on folding of knotted DNA nanostructures has attracted the attention of several news outlets: Science Daily, nanowerk and newswise.
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29 January 2016: Daan Frenkel awarded the Boltzmann medal
Daan Frenkel, the Programme Grant's Principal Investigator, has been awarded the 2016 Boltzmann medal, the most important and prestigious prize in statistical mechanics “for his seminal contributions to the Statistical Mechanics understanding of the kinetics, self-assembly and phase behaviour of complex macro-molecular, colloidal and biomolecular systems through highly innovative simulation methodologies.” The medal is awarded only once every three years, by the Commission on Statistical Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). Daan will be presented with the gilded medal at the 2016 StatPhys Conference in Lyon on 20 July.
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28 October 2015: Farewell to Sridhar
The Programme Grant team say farewell and congratulations to Sridhar Neelamraju from the Birmingham group next week. Sridhar will be starting a postoc in the group of Prof. Graeme Day in Southampton.
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19 October 2015: Andy moves into Artificial Intelligence
Congratulations to Andy Ballard, who starts at Google Deep Mind today, working on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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12 October 2015: Congratulations to Lewis
Congratulations to Dr Lewis Smeeton from the Birmingham group, who passed his Ph.D. (funded by the Programme Grant) today.
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20 August 2015: Journal special issue
A special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter on knots is in print today, guest edited by Mark Miller (Durham co-investigator), Ivan Coluzza, Sophie Jackson and Cristian Micheletti.
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15 June 2015: Journal cover
Work from the Oxford group has again been chosen to feature on the cover of the Journal of Chemical Physics: "Introducing improved structural properties and salt dependence into a coarse-grained model of DNA".
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5 May 2015: RSC Tilden Prize for David Wales
David Wales has been awarded a prestigious 2015 Tilden Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry, highlighting his contributions to self-assembly. The award cites David's pioneering work in "the development of methods to elucidate potential energy landscapes and their role in dynamics and thermodynamics, with a particular emphasis on self-organisation". Read more at the Royal Society of Chemistry.
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28 April 2015: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "Characterizing the bending and flexibility induced by bulges in DNA duplexes" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
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23 April 2015: Special issue of New Journal of Physics
Jonathan Doye from the Oxford group, together with Andrew Turberfield, Ard Louis and Tim Liedl, will be guest editor for a special issue of New Journal of Physics on DNA Nanostructures and Self-Assembly.
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10 March 2015: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "Modelling toehold-mediated RNA strand displacement" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of Biophysical Journal.
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29 January 2015: Daan awarded the 2015 Bakhuis Roozeboom Medal
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Daan Frenkel, the Programme Grant P.I., has been awarded the 2015 Bakhuis-Roozeboom Medal of the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. The Medal is awarded once every four years for a significant contribution to research in phase theory. Daan has won the award "for the outstanding contribution that his creative computer simulations have made to the development of phase theory, the science that studies the behaviour of matter under changing circumstances."
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7 December 2014: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "Heterogeneous ice nucleation on silver-iodide-like surfaces" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
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1 December 2014: Aleks joins the academic staff at Cambridge
Congratulations to Dr Aleks Reinhardt, formerly a postdoc in the Oxford group, who has been appointed to a fixed-term lectureship in thoeretical chemistry at Cambridge.
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1 October 2014: Professorship for Jonathan Doye
Congratulations to co-investigator Jonathan Doye, who has been appointed to a personal chair in the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford.
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28 August 2014: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "Effects of surface interactions on heterogeneous ice nucleation for a monatomic water model" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
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21 June 2014: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "A nucleotide-level coarse-grained model of RNA" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
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15 May 2014: Programme Workshop in Cambridge
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This workshop consists of progress reports from members of the Programme and will be attended by the external advisors. We welcome Prof. Jean-Louis Barrat as a new external advisor in succession to Prof. Jean-Pierre Hansen. The meeting is intended primarily for those involved with the Programme, but anyone else interested in attending the talks should contact Andy Ballard at ab2111@cam.ac.uk. The agenda is available here.
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Honours and appointments
Daan Frenkel (PI) has been elected a Member of the Academia Europaea.
David Wales (Co-I) has been appointed to the ERC expert review panel and is an expert reviewer for PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe. Roy Johnston (Co-I) has been appointed a member of EPSRC's e-Infrastructure Strategic Advisory Team. |
7 January 2014: Announcement of a 2014 CECAM Workshop on knots in Vienna
Mark Miller and Ivan Coluzza (Vienna) will be co-hosting a CECAM workshop on knots across all scientific
disciplines in Vienna from 10 to 13 September 2014. Self assembly of knotted structures in biological
molecules and soft matter will be a major theme of the meeting.
For more information, visit the workshop's pages at CECAM. |
7 January 2014: Announcement of 2014 Energy Landscapes workshop in Durham
Mark Miller, Halim Kusumaatmaja and David Wales will co-host the 2014 Energy Landscapes workshop
from 15 to 21 August 2014 at Durham University, UK, continuing a series of meetings held in
Obergurgl, Austria and Telluride, USA in recent years. The meeting will include applications
of energy landscape theory to self assembly, especially in the area of soft matter.
In the tradition of Energy Landscape meetings, there will be ample opportunity for informal discussions and detailed work on new ideas in small groups. Social activities will include a day-trip to the tidal island of Lindisfarne (site of an Elizabethan castle and the ruins of an ancient priory) and the workshop dinner in the Joachim Room of the College of St Hild and St Bede. For further details and to register online, see the meeting's website. |
21 November 2013: Forthcoming journal cover
The Oxford group's paper
"Coarse-graining DNA for simulations of DNA nanotechnology" has been highlighted on the
inside cover of the
21 December issue of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
It has also been featured on the PCCP blog as one of its
hot papers.
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16 to 17 April 2013: Joint Programme Grant Meeting in Cambridge
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A joint meeting has taken place at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, between the self-essembly programme and an independent programme on hard-soft matter interfaces, coordinated between Sheffield, Leeds, York, UCL and Cambridge (Materials Department) and led by Professor John Harding of Sheffield. There is considerable overlap between the scientific aims of the two programmes and the informal meeting established a number of areas where collaborative work could emerge.
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1 April 2013: Durham Lectureship for Halim
Dr Halim Kusumaatmaja from the Cambridge group of the Programme Grant has been appointed to a Lectureship in Theoretical Soft and Biological Matter in the Physics Department at Durham University. He starts his new position today. Congratulations, Halim!
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18 March 2013: Mark moves to Durham
Congratulations to Dr Mark Miller, who has been appointed to a Senior Lectureship in the Department of Chemistry at Durham University. As a co-investigator, Mark remains a member of the Programme Grant team, adding Durham as a fourth centre in the collaboration.
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19 December 2012: Postdoctoral position available at Birmingham
A postdoctoral research fellowship to work on chemical potential disconnectivity graphs starting in April 2013 is available in the Birmingham group of the Programme. The closing date for applications is 31 January 2013. Further details and instructions on applying are available at the Birmingham web site.[Post now filled.] |
7 October 2012: Journal cover
The Oxford group's recent paper "Sequence-dependent thermodynamics of a coarse-grained DNA model" has been featured on the cover of this week's issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics.
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17 September 2012: Programme Workshop in Cambridge
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Members of the Programme will deliver updates on their projects and some external speakers in related areas will summarise their research interests with a view to potential collaborations in the future. An EPSRC representative will also attend. It is intended primarily for those involved with the Programme, but anyone else interested in attending the talks should contact Dr Halim Kusumaatmaja at hk286@cam.ac.uk. The agenda is available here.
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30 January 2012: Academic appointment for Laura
Congratulations to Dr Laura Filion, who has been appointed to a tenure track position at Utrecht University in the Soft Condensed Matter and Biophysics group, funded from the Sector Plan.
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24 January 2012: Programme Workshop in Cambridge
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This workshop consists of progress reports from members of the Programme and will be attended by the external advisors. It is intended primarily for those involved with the Programme, but anyone else interested in attending the talks should contact Vanessa de Souza at vkd21@cam.ac.uk. The agenda is available here.
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22 to 23 September 2011: Programme Workshop in Cambridge
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This event is a short symposium of talks by invited speakers from other groups (mostly experimental) in Cambridge, Oxford and Birmingham. The agenda is available here. The talks are open to all interested. Please contact Vanessa de Souza at vkd21@cam.ac.uk if you would like to come.
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July 2011: Poster prize for Vanessa
Vanessa de Souza has won the award for the best poster presentation at the Gordon Research Conference on the Chemistry and Physics of Liquids in New Hampshire, 24-29 July 2011. She also delivered a talk entitled Crystallisation in the energy landscape.
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