Just some bits and pieces which don't fit anywhere else.
A spare ticket to the Six Nations game at Murrayfield was offered to me as well as a cracking night out with some of my old Uni housemates. Almost deadset, I just needed a way of getting there... Train was out of the question, just ridiculously expensive. So my only option was to drive from Nottingham (about 4.45 hrs) so not bad. It was a good dummy run for my summer drive up to Sunderland later on in the year and I managed to take in the sights up North which included the 'Angel of the North' and the sprawling city of Newcastle.
It was nice to pop back to Edinburgh though. Having parked up and in the local bar watching Rangers on TV I waited for the rest of the guys to arrive. After a brief reunion (Will Jones, Alex Grundy (aka Pat Butcher), Jamie Prescott and Ben Cooper-Smith) we all grabbed a few beers and chatted about old times and the journey up.
It would be my first proper live Rugby experience and we had great seats and a constant supply of guiness to keep us going. These things are always far different from watching them on TV and the atmosphere was pretty special too! England hardly impressed, but we managed to snatch a win.
The arrival of a pair of Scolopendra hardwickei or more commonly known as the Indian Tiger Centipede rounded out 2011. David purchased them and are being kept with two other species of centipedes: Scolopendra subspinipes, Scolopendra mutilans. First time venom extraction from these beauties yielded a crazy amount of venom, enough to get cracking in the lab with. Check zootox for updates.
In September 2011 myself and David Richards bought some baby Lake Nukuru puff adders to add to the expanding menagerie of zootox. Although these snakes have been heavily studied and their venom quite extensively researched, they are stunners and worthy additions to the collection. So much so, David has supplied 2 pairs of the species which we had to academics at Bangor University.
David Richards, a PhD researcher in my lab, and myself have a joint interest in toxinology and the vast numbers of toxin compounds found within venoms from a wide range of reptile and invertebrate species. The evolution of species to develop a cocktail of compounds to essentially incapcitate/kill prey or for self defense is truly amazing. Furthermore, is the range of novel compounds which have high specificity for a range of neuronal ion channels. High throughput screening technology is used by many pharmaceutical companies to try and find a novel compound which hits a specific target for drug and insecticide development.
However, we feel high throughput technology may not yield as useful information as using a low throughput approach and testing novel chemistries using patch clamp and two electrode voltage clamp will yield greater details about compounds and the commercial potential they may hold.
Zootox is a joint venture which utilises our skills in Neurophysiology, Zoology and Pharmacology to explore venoms and toxins from a range of housed animals. Zootox is currently a platform for us to be able to discuss our science from the extraction process to the physiological testing stage.