Some months before @robField’s tweet setting off the train that led to the Eu sensor that discriminates PAP/PAPS, Ed Yates and myself were having a curry with Dulce Papy-Garcia from UPEC, who had examined one of our PhD students. A matter we discussed at length was ‘why sulfate’. That is, why does biology use both sulfate and phosphate to modify post synthesis proteins, polysaccharides and other molecules. We didn’t come up with an answer,  but the conversation led Ed and myself to consider that the question merited exploration.  This we thought would be a simple matter.  I ..read more

More sulfation Earlier this year Simon Wheeler (who now has a well deserved substantive position, congratulations!) and Steve Butler published the first output from the BBSRC TDRI awarded to Steve, with myself and Ed Yates in supporting roles. It is always nice to collaborate with real chemists, as it reminds me I am very much a pseudo chemist, and I learn a lot. After what I would consider a quite heroic effort on the synthesis front, Simon and Steve pulled out a very useful sensor, based on a europium complex. The Eu sensor has good selectivity for PAP over PAPS, the universal sulfate donor ..read more

Where are we in the pandemic? The bottom line here is that anyone making the statement ‘coming out of the Covid environment’ has not kept up with the data, which demonstrate the following: 1. Transmission is ~ 98% via airborne aerosols, known since March 2020 and firmly established by initial rules on masking and regions where this is maintained. 2. The pandemic is unabated. Cases remain high, with several waves a year. This to the extent that hospital beds fill up every wave, world-wide health care workers are burning out due to overwork and waiting lists are getting so long that the bes ..read more

So today I sent this email as a reminder to the members of my research team. “I write this email because University management has abdicated all responsibility towards the wellbeing of their staff and students, and their families. Current University and UK government Covid ‘rules’ contradict the most simple evidence, which is based on exceptionally solid physics and biology/medicine. We are scientists capable of critical thinking, and we should carry these qualities into our daily lives.   Over the last few weeks our masking at work has become quite poor. The masks we wear protect others ..read more

The UK schooling system is an example of the mirage of choice and how the mantra of ‘choice’ is used to reduce choice, opportunity and promote ideology. Take a look at secondary schools. There are multiple systems. These include: 1.  Comprehensives, select on distance from home. 2. Grammar – select on an exam taken at the start of the last year of primary school 3. Faith – select on religion of parents. On top of this are academies. These use the exam of Grammar schools, and then inject a lottery element, so applicants are banded and a % of intake comes from each band. Some inject a ..read more

After an interaction on Twitter with a colleague who is associated with #LongCovid and #TeamClots, he asked me for some references. I thought what to send, and then realised that references plus something a bit more than a Tweet might be useful, so here goes. A brief recap Our first foray into the interactions of SARS-CoV-2 with heparin, and so with cellular heparan sulfate (HS), was published just over 2 years ago in March 2020, written up on a GoogleDoc on the  Friday night and the following Saturday. This was not a blind stab, but based on previous work by our Italian colleag ..read more

We have until June 23rd to submit this form to our GP to prevent the sale of medical information that is identifiable back to the patient (that means you) to 3rd parties. Thanks to Byline Times for the tip! The sale of such information is part of the Grand Sale of the NHS, which has been taking place since Thatcher came to power in 1978. A quick check of the effectiveness of health systems around the world will show that the private sector is not able to deliver adequate healthcare. Indeed the profit motive and the Hippocratic Oath are hardly compatible ..read more

With Project SHAPE progressing in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool, we have now moved onto the compulsory redundancy stage. As a senior member of staff who went back to the trenches after ten years in management, I have been contacted informally by a number of staff who have been sent a notice that they are at risk of redundancy. So I used my experience in management and my knowledge of the University to figure what may be important for retention in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool and, perhaps more important, what may ..read more

My current list of major unforced errors by the Johnson government that have led to the covid disaster that is now 15 months old and shows little sign of letting up. 1.  No enforced quarantine for international travellers, starting in March 2020. 2. Allowing both Liverpool away and home matches in March. 3. Allowing Dido Harding to go ahead with Cheltenham races. 4. Locking down too late in March 2020 and no control over interactional travel during 1st lockdown. 5. Not implementing a full mask policy by March 2020, when aerosols were known to be main rout of transmission. 6. No ..read more

Blood clots, for example, deep vein thromboses or pulmonary embolisms, are serious and we should rightly be concerned about these. With ~ 17 M doses of the AZ vaccine delivered into people, we have reports of 15 cases of deep vein thrombosis and 22 cases of pulmonary embolism. Deep vein thrombosis occurs at rate of 0.1% (so 1 in 1000) across all age groups, increasing with age. So every day that means around 47 cases in a population of 17 million – in fact it will be more, because those vaccinated are not representative of the population, but an older segment. If we consider that vaccination h ..read more