Thomas Swift

A peer reviewed paper just got accepted - and I'm torn between sharing good news with my collaborators and sampling local Hyderabadi Indian cuisine. #toughchoices

The family is growing! We are delighted to be hosting a summer intern to validate our process Chemistry. In turn Kiera is becoming our 'first' temporary employee of Moleculsr Titans!

Study started in Canada with Healthcare workers with no immunity. As it was replicated in other countries staff gained immunity and effect size was lost. Therefore N95 most important in early stages of new disease spread to intervene for diseases with low immunity in the population

Yes, study came out in 2022, but this is why conferences are so important so we can have interdisciplinary conversations and discuss complex data as a group. Raw tezt here is anyone wants: www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10....

The trial was repeated in 3 other countries and... yes. The effect decreased. It decreased as more health workers had more antibodies and greater immunity as time went on. By the 3rd wave, effect was lost. But for the first 2 waves N95 were crucial for saving lives!

In Canada surgeons actually did a randomized trial, of their surgeons wearing normal PPE or the N95 mask. They ignored anyone who had COVID before, only looked at first infections, N95 masks clearly made a major difference preventing infection in the first 2 waves of the pandemic.

So... today I was at an infectious disease conference and I finally saw in black and white an answer COVID grifters spent 2020/21 meaning about. 'Where is the evidence N95 masks help prevent COVID?' Well. It exists. Now. Finally. It takes time to do high quality science and full data integrity...

Infectious disease congress

My talk seemed to go down well

Evening plans by pool are sorted

So today, I presented in Rome at a Global Infectious Disease congress, my PhD student is presenting in Sheffield @YRM_2025 and all appears to have been a grand success. No idea how she's celebrating but my hotel has a pool..

I've an MSc student doing this now... Or rather testing the culture mediums each time to see how pure they are. Am curious what the results show

Option 1) 99% standard solvent, 1% deuterated.
Stretch those supplies. out make it last!
Option 2) 100% standard solvent, glass insert with deuterated for lock - reusable.

Really helps with solvent shimming and baseline.
Both options still give massive solvent peak but suppression is very good now

I know it really isn't the answer you're looking for but I've found 2 options for my lab to run standard routines on non publication critical work - to a certain extent both rely on solvent suppression (NOESY has come a long way).
It means any solvent - sample overlaps are... yeah. not good

I've spent many hours exploring s virtual Castel Saint'angelo - now I've seen the real thing finally!

Work has sent me to Rome, but I got 1 afternoon free today to get bus into centre to explore. Crazy to think a generation of people 'sort of' know this city intimately because of Assassin's Creed games - and I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint exploring!

All absolutely necessary though. And we were developing medical diagnostics - devices to test for disease. The ethical approval hoops we jumped through to help treat people and make them better. There's a reason you only let clinical professionals handle this - wouldn't dream of doing ourselves

Polymer nanotechnology functional contact lens I produced in labs as part of a postdoctoral project went to pre-clinical, animal efficacy and safety trials about 10 years ago. The paperwork producing SOPs for production, setting sterility batch testing procedures, packaging and shipping... wow.

PhD candidates getting certificates after 3 minute thesis

My PhD student delivered a faculty 3 minute thesis competition yesterday and I've had good feedback - unfortunately work meant I was 50 miles north at the time so had to miss out. A great dry run before she presents at the Macro YRM in Sheffield on the 10th of June! #polymerchemistry

Just arrived in the hotel ready for the morning start. Am an academic biomaterials scientist very keen to explore our technologies in infection management.

If I see you (or you see me, Tom Swift, please do say Hi as this is my first time)

Reform mayor vows to sack council’s diversity officers - except there aren’t any Dame Andrea Jenkyns has doubled down on Farage’s pledge to sack diversity officers in Lincolnshire but the county council has revealed it does not employ any

Lot of people voted reform because they are unhappy main political parties. But I'm yet to see any evidence Nigel Farage and his ilk are not grifters. Take the country seriously and stop mucking up every day British peoples livelihoods you schmooks
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Health app screenshkt reports that April was a very stressful month

My smart watch has started telling me things I already knew! Still... Nice to have it documented.

Self improvement is hard

Leeds City Centre is showing its best face for the BSRC Sparking Innovation conference! Park Plaza conference suite has open glass walls facing out over the city hall.

Joined them to find out and contribute to the future of innovation funding opportunities available and upcoming in this sector

Warm weather in the parish grounds for festival goers

4o cask Ales available behind the bar

First night of the Rothwell Beer Festival, kicking off 3 days of responsible drinking to raise money to charity! Always a stressful moment as we kick off the event, getting purchases sorted and ticket sales going, but I feel like everything will be alright!

Port and cheese

Some things to celebrate after today. A fantastic day networking followed by a stroke of well timed news. Looking forward to the opportunities this will bring over the summer!

Tom Swift speaks at the Bionow Yorkshire Partnering Event.

Delighted to have just given @moleculartitans.bsky.social their first public outings, discussing needs within public health authorities and how our materials offer new routes forward, at the @bionow.bsky.social Yorkshire Partnering event. Hopefully some exciting developments will follow!

Jason Jones is presenting at BioNow's Yorkshire biopartnering event - introducing the BDH programme that will follow CAYMAN and SIBLING. £4 million UK funds supporting 100 SME businesses in West Yorkshire- has been great to be part of these schemes working for academic-industry partnerships

Meanwhile I've been part of the volunteer team preparing for next week's Rothwell Beer Festival! 40 casks loaded and ready for sale - all profits for charitable causes. Anyone in Leeds region Thursday- Saturday next week get tickets from www.rothwellbeerfestival.co.uk

Trying to relax over the weekend and my family have decided to try planting for harvest. Now we have pots of earth squirrels over ever spare cm of indoor space that might catch the light!

A fortnight ago we got another rejection that simply said 'we are solely focused on technologies in an advanced state'...

We have 2 granted international patent families! We have £20k funding to launch a spin out company. How much more advanced do you need?

Grant rejections suck.
They particularly suck when the only legible negative part of the feedback is 'There were some concerns about the relevant experience and skills of the proposed team'

We got my daughter a Walkie Talkie for Christmas. She loved the concept, but in practice seems to find the idea of people contacting her odd.

if anyone calls her through it her go to response to anyone using it is demanding 'what's the matter?' as sternly as she can muster.

Chemistry courses to be shut down at the University of Bradford Closures are part of a trend seen across UK universities

There's a lot more to say before this story completely wraps up - but right now our focus is on the students and apprentices still with us who we hope to do right by. Senior management team have committed to teaching out all currently enrolled students. www.chemistryworld.com/news/chemist...

Farewell Swadin Chakraborty, who finishes his 3 month visit from IIT Kharagpur to our labs, going home after a very productive stay. Funded by BBSRC Spark he's kicked off what could be a great larger interdisciplinary collaboration developing new materials

If we could have had conversations about workload peaks and troughs, about support in busy periods... wow. My life would be different.

Instead it was just 'you are not managing your workload well and we expect you to do better going forwards. Have you tried enforcing digital detox at weekends?'