Highlights
The recent couple of years has seen tremendous activity within the chemometrics group in Bristol.
Collaborations
Recently there have been a significant number of productive collaborations.
- In collaboration with Milan Meloun of Purdice University, Czech Republic we have worked on improved methods for determining the number of factors in spectroscopic data.
- In collaboration with Katrina Service and Steve Harris of the Biological Sciences School in Bristol, we have worked on using pattern recognition to interpret chromatograms of badger urine.
- In co-operation with Glaxo Smith Kline and especially Richard Escott and his team, we are developing chemometric methods for a variety of applications relating both to reaction monitoring and process control, involving coupled chromatography, HPLC and spectroscopy.
- With Melissa Hanna- Brown of Kings College Department of Pharmacy we have worked on chemometrics as applied to Capillary Electrophoresis in toxicology and hope to extend this collaboration to work to diabetes.
- In co-operation with Rich Sleeman and Jim Carter of Mass Spec Analytical we are looking at how statistical methods can help determine the pattern of contamination of banknotes by drugs to be used in court cases.
- With Dustin Penn of the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Vienna, Milos Novotny and colleagues in Indiana, Karl Grammer, Lisa Oberzauer and Gottfried Fischer and colleagues also of Vienna and Karlheinz Trebesius in Munich we are looking at human metabolomics.
- With Sciona, a biotech company, we have worked on using fluorescence spectroscopy combined with chemometrics for rapid genotyping.
- With John Duncan of Triton Technology we are working on plastics, hoping to incorporate algorithms into a commercial instrument for analysis of polymers using pattern recognition.
- With David McCalley of the University of West of England, we have recently done some interesting work on the application of pattern recognition techniques to chromatographic column performance.
- With Jose Trevejo and colleagues at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, we are working on characterisation of humans and mice by their volatiles.
- With Bert Vaux of the University of Cambridge, UK, we are looking at applying chemometric methods to dialect surveys in linguistics.
Public lectures
Recent invited and plenary public lectures.
- Asia-Pacific Conference in Analytical Chemistry (Manila, Philippines)
- ACS Symposium on Chemometrics in Food Science (Boston, US, September 2002)
- Chemometrics VI, (Brno, Czech Republic)
- International Workshop on Chemometrics (Iran Organisation for Science and Technology) (Esfahan, Iran)
2003
- XXIII Escola de Verão em Química (São Paolo, Brazil)
- Second Black Sea Basin Conference on Analytical Science (Istanbul, Turkey)
- Workshop on Experimental Design (Iran Organisation for Science and Technology; Iran Chemical Industries Society) (Isfahan, Iran)
- Third Iranian Chemometrics Workshop (Zanjan, Iran)
- Federation of American Analytical Chemical Societies (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
- Advances in Chromatography and Electrophoresis: Conferentia Chemometrica (Budapest, Hungary)
2004
- Chemstat (Pardubice, Czech Republic)
- SCAC 2004 (Lake Balaton, Hungary)
- Conference on Chemometrics and Bioinformatics in Asia (Shanghai, China)
- Chromatographic Society International Informatics and Data Visualisation Conference (Winchester ,UK)
- Process Analytical Technology: Innovations in Process Control and Product Quality (Dublin, Ireland)
- Impurities and Degradation Products: Identification and Control in Drug Substances and Products (Dublin, Ireland)
- International Conference on Data Visualisation (Winchester, UK)
2005
- Chemical Analysis Conference (Moscow, Russia)
- HPLC 2005 (Stockholm, Sweden)
- Conferentia Chemometria (Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary)
- Batch Processing : Maximising Productivity (Manchester, UK)
- Bioarrays Europe (London, UK)
- RSC Analytical Research Forum (Plymouth,UK)
2006
- High Throughput Chromatography / Extech (York, UK)
- SCAC 2006 (Lake Balaton, Hungary)
2007
- Eastern Analytical Symposium (Somerset, NJ)
- Conferentia Chemometrica (Budapest, Hungary)
- RSC Hot Topics in Chemometrics (Brentford,UK)
2008
- International Conference on Chromatographic Data Visualisation (Winchester, UK)
- International conference on Perspectives in Vibrational spectroscopy (Kerala, India)
- International Meeting on Multivariate Analysis and Chemometry for Cultural Heritage and Environment (Ventotene, Italy)
- Metabolomics Society Annual Meeting (Boston, US)
2009
- 4th MaSC workshop (National Gallery, London)
- Microbiota (Paris)
- Fifth Black Sea Basin Conference on Analytical Science (Turkey)
- Conferentia Chemometrica (Hungary)
2010
- Winter Symposium on Chemometrics (St Petersburg, Russia)
2002
Recent invited seminars from the group.
- Institute of Agricultural Science (Lisbon, Portugal)
- Institute of Science and Technology (Lisbon, Portugal)
- National Institutes of Sensor Technology (Dublin, Ireland)
- University of Kasestart (Bangkok, Thailand)
- University of The Philippines: Diliman campus (Manila, Phillipines)
- Kimia (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
- UKM (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
- University of Greenwich (Chatham, UK)
- Oxford Natural Products (Charlbury, Near Oxford)
2003
- UNICAMP (Campinas, Brazil)
- University of S Carlos (S Carlos, Brazil)
- National Institute of Standards Technology (nr. Washington DC, US)
- Technical University of Esfahan (Eshafan, Iran)
2004
- RTI (Research Triangle Institute) (North Carolina, US)
- Axsun (near Boston, US)
- University of Zhejiang (Hangzhou, China)
- University of Stockholm (Stockholm, Sweden)
- AstraZeneca (Stockholm, Sweden)
- University of Umea (Umea, Sweden)
- Glaxo Smith Kline (Ware, UK)
- Glaxo Smith Kline (Stevenage, UK)
- Oxagen (near Oxford)
2005
- University of Salamanca (Salamanca, Spain)
- Glaxo Smith Kline (Stevenage, UK)
2006
- Boston Medical School (Boston, US)
- University of Marmara (Istanbul, Turkey)
- Technical University of Istanbul (Turkey)
- University of Edinburgh (UK)
2007
- Unilever (Port Sunlight, UK)
- AstraZeneca (Wilmington, DE, US)
- DuPont (Wilmington, DE, US)
- Henkel Corporation (Dusseldorf, Germany)
- University of Manchester (UK)
- University of Leicester (UK)
- University of Reading (UK)
- University of Bath (UK)
2008
- Indian Institute of Technology (Chennai, India)
- SRM University (Chennai, India)
- JSS College of Pharmacy (Ooty, India)
2002
People
Many of former coworkers have continued to be in touch. Some are continuing as postdocs but many are in established positions.
- Cevdet Demir has a Faculty Position as Professor in the University of Bursa, Turkey.
- Conrad Bessant has a Faculty Position as Senior Lecturer in the University of Cranfield, UK, Biotechnology Centre.
- Frank Burden, a sabbatical visitor, has recently retired from Monash in Australia but is still very active as editor of the Handbook of Environmental Monitoring.
- Hassan Sukri is a laboratory director in Kimia, Malaysia.
- Christian Airiau now works for GlaxoSmithKline as a Principal Chemometrician.
- Tom Thurston has recently joined GlaxoSmithKline to do chemometrics.
- Mohammad Wasim has returned to Pakistan to work in his former Institute.
- Guler Yalcin is Professor at the University of Istanbul.
- Samantha Dunkerley is employed as a project manager in Pfizer.
- Simeone Zomer, Antonio Carvalho and Hailin Shen have all been employed by Glaxo Smith Kline as chemometrics in 2006.
- Lifeng Zhu is working as a laboratory manager in Novartis
- Fan Gong is working in Rothamsted Research Station in Harpenden.
- Kos Zissis is working for the Greek Ministry of Consumer affairs.
- Sarah Dixon is working at Government Communication Headquarters, Cheltenham.
Many former colleagues have worked as postdocs around the world, these include the Universities of Goteberg (Sweden), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Newcastle (UK), Manchester (UK), Campinas (Brazil) and Oxford (UK). And several former colleagues are working as researchers in far flung countries, including the US (Avecia) and Norway (NIFES). Other companies that have employed former graduates for the group include Aromascan, CAMO, and Camsoft.
Prizes
We continue to be successful in attracting prizes, with two of the main Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Division prizes being awarded to the group recently.
- Richard Brereton won the RSC’s 2006 Theophilus Redwood lectureship which is one of the major awards of the Analytical Division.
- Simeone Zomer won the RSC’s 2005 Ronald Belcher Lectureship given to the best young analytical chemist in the UK based on publications.
Software
We regularly develop packages, some under contract.
- Conrad Bessant produced a package for HPLC and FIA deconvolution, written in Matlab, under contract to a commercial company, delivered in 2000.
- Tom Thurston has developed a widely used Add-in for Chemometrics to accompany the text Chemometrics : Data Analysis for the Laboratory and Chemical Plant. This was based on original work by Les Erskine and is now widely used in courses.
- Gavin Lloyd has developed a series of Matlab GUIs for mass spectrometric data handling for the company Mass Spec Analytical.
- Tom Thurston, in co-operation with Antonio Carvalho and Lifeng Zhu pioneered the Boris software package for on-line reaction monitoring under contract to GlaxoSmithKline.
New space for the Centre
As part of a huge rebuilding and refurbishment project in the School of Chemistry over the past ten years (around £45 million), the Centre for Chemometrics has took possession of new custom build premises in November 2005. This involves a major upgrading of working conditions.