News Archive: 2014
First Prize!
5 December 2014
Congratulations to Laura McVeigh from the Leeds Microbubble Consortium who received first prize for her poster in the Research category, which was presented at the SHOWCASE 5th Annual University of Leeds Postgraduate Research Conference yesterday.
Laura's poster focused on 'Bubbles for Cancer: Improving the delivery of anti-cancer drugs using microbubbles'. There was a poster session as part of the conference which provided Laura with the chance to discuss her poster in further detail with other delegates.
Seminar on Nanomaterials in Foods
17 November 2014
Dr Denis Koltsov, who attended and spoke at the last Microbubble Symposium will be discussing Nanomaterials in Foods on Wednesday 10th December as part of the Sci-Org Public Lecture sessions in London.
Find out more:
Laura accepted to present at PG Conference
7 November 2014
We are pleased to announce that Laura McVeigh from the Leeds Microbubble Consortium has had her poster accepted for the SHOWCASE 5th Annual University of Leeds Postgraduate Research Conference.
Laura's poster title is: 'Bubbles for Cancer: Improving the delivery of anti-cancer drugs using microbubbles', we are all wishing her well with the poster competition as she will have the chance to win Postgraduate Research Poster of the Year.
The conference takes place on 4th December in the Great Hall and Parkinson Court at the University of Leeds. The Vice Chancellor, Sir Alan Langlands, will be in attendance to present the awards.
Showcase: the University of Leeds Postgraduate Research Conference is the annual University wide showcase of postgraduate research and a celebration of the significant contribution postgraduate researchers make to the research profile of the University. This conference is free and open to all staff and postgraduate students at the University of Leeds.
Interactive research presentation
28 October 2014
Victoria Mico, currently attending the MicroTAS conference in Texas, has put together an interactive presentation on her current research.
Part of the conference has involved Victoria presenting her work to other delegates and profiling the work taking place here at Leeds.
The conference is in it's 18th year and looks at Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. The Conference offers plenary talks as well as contributed oral presentations and posters selected from submitted abstracts.
Find out more:
iZon Science Research Symposium highlights Leeds research
6 October 2014
The annual iZon Science Research Symposium, held in Oxford recently, played host to Dr Sally Peyman and Adam Churchman of the MNP and Leeds Microbubble Consortium groups in Leeds amongst others.
Find out more:
The poetry of bubbles
2 October 2014
To celebrate National Poetry Day we are taking a trip down memory to when Steve Evans' lecture on the Physics of Bubbles inspired a young writer to produce the following:
The Physics of Bubbles and their Applications
Prof. Stephen Evans
(Apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan)
Our lives were sadly lessened were it not for the ubiquity
Of bubbles' different sizes and their wonderful proclivity
To soapily distend and gently wander on the air's soft tide
But scientists are well aware that bubbles have a darker side!
The propeller of a liner they can chew in wide eyed innocence
Then cheery light emit as they subside in sonoluminscence*
But all's not lost 'cos bubbles have potential that's deflationr'y
To dock on nasty tumours which are growing but are station'ry.
For bionanotechnophiles and medicos molecular
Are striving in laborat'ries to conjure quite spectacular
Bubbles that can vary from the micro to the nanosize
Bubbles that will heal you, I'm sure that comes as some surprise!
They'll travel round your body like a little roving limpet mine
To lock on nasty ailments is their mission and their whole design
And when they come upon a growth that they have chosen to deflate
Then with a blast of ultra sound the tumour they will detonate!
They're not the Guinness bubbles that you find atop your creamy stout
They're not the yeasty lipids that in Champers struggle to pop out
They're not the South Sea version that will make your shares disintegrate
But, by ingenious paradox, expand to discombobulate.
So here's three cheers for bubbles, let us raise a glass and evervesce
And may the back room boffins with their cunning plans have great success!
So look afresh at bubbles when you've drowned a glass to quench your thirst:
Remember that 'the first are last' and don't forget 'the last are first'.
*(poetic licence with spelling: 'sonoluminescence')
By Graham Clarke
The Bubble Lady
12 September 2014
After giving a memorable talk at the Izon Research Symposium, Dr Sally Peyman has been titled 'The Bubble Lady'.
Sal's talk discussed 'Microfluidics - a versatile platform for bubble generation and functionalisation' at St Hugh's College in Oxford. The talk generated a lot of interest amongst delegates and has helped promote the Leeds Microbubble Consortium's research further.
The Symposium ran from 11th -12th September and is the 3rd in a series of research Symposia hosted by Izon.
Microbubble Posters to Feature at Paris Conference
21 August 2014
The Condensed Matter in Paris conference is scheduled to take place next week, 24-29th August.
Victoria Micro, a member of the Leeds Microbubble Consortium, will be in attendance and has been asked to present a poster as part of the Monday session, which outlines ‘Engineering nanodroplet-microbubble architectures for hydrophobic drug delivery’. In addition to Victoria’s poster, Adam Churchman, also of the Leeds Microbubble Consortium will be presenting his poster around ‘Developing Single Step Microfluidic Methods of Producing Microbubbles with an inner Oil Layer’, to delegates at the conference.
Contributions for both posters have come from Dr Sally Peyman and Professor Stephen Evans. The posters detail the current areas of research that the Leeds MB Consortium is focussing on.
Please click on the following links for further details about the Condensed Matter in Paris Conference and the Leeds Microbubble Consortium’s current projects.
Steve Evans to discuss Engineered Therapeutic Microbubbles
19 August 2014
Professor Stephen Evans has been invited to speak at the ‘Particle Systems Analysis 2014’ conference to contribute towards the ‘Fine Bubble’ session on 16th September in Manchester.
Steve will be talking about research from the EPSRC funded ‘Engineered Therapeutic Microbubbles’, a multidisciplinary project between Physics and Medicine. Steve and his team have been investigating improved treatments for Colorectal Cancer, through the development of novel targeted, triggered, release drug delivery methods using Microbubbles.
The conference has been organised by The Particle Characterisation Interest Group (PCIG) of the Royal Society of Chemistry and their particular focus this year will be around chemical, pharmaceutical, biomedical, nuclear, mineral, food and household products industries.
Life in a (micro) bubble
24 July 2014
Ben Owen from Malvern Instruments has published a blog, titled Life in a (Micro) bubble, following on from his attendance at the Microbubble Symposium that was held earlier this month.
Learn more about our sponsors
22 July 2014
To learn more about our sponsor's from this year's microbubble symposium, please click on the links below:
- Malvern Instruments
- Specialised Imaging
- Izon
- NPL
- iThera Medical
- Vision Research
- Precision Acoustics
- Weidlinger Associates
- Epigem
Thank you to everyone who sponsored us this year.
Another year over...
16 July 2014
The fourth Microbubble Symposium came to an end yesterday afternoon...
The fourth Microbubble Symposium came to an end yesterday afternoon after two days of fantastic talks at Weetwood Hall, discussing the Fabrication, Characterisation and Translational Applications of Microbubbles.
We were joined by high profile speakers from across the globe, including Garbin, Gordillo, Leighton and Postema. We would like to thank all our speakers who came and everyone who submitted a poster for the session.
This year also included a wine tasting session from a local company in Malton, Tate Smith and was hosted by Scott Hanby (WSET). The night ended on a high as the delegates were able to sample an English Sparkling, Nyetimber.
Further details with regards to the talks and the wines will be posted shortly.
Members to discuss Therapeutic Microbubbles in San Antonio
8 July 2014
Three members of the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics group and the Leeds Microbubble Consortium have been accepted to present talks at this year’s Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences conference in October 2014.
Dr Sally Peyman (PDRA), Victoria Mico (PG) and Adam Churchman (PG) will be discussing therapeutic microbubbles to promote the current research the Consortium are undertaking.
The conference will be taking place in San Antonio, Texas from October 26-30th.
Final Programme now available
7 July 2014
The final programme for the Microbubble Symposium 2014 (PDF)
Outreach activity at Bubble HQ
4 July 2014
Louise Coletta and Gemma Marsten recently hosted a tour and discussion around the microbubble work at St James' University Hospital.
A number of School pupils attended a two day outreach event, where they learnt about different areas of Science, including Microbubbles and the current work the team are undertaking to cure cancer.
Wine Tasting Session
30 June 2014
This year’s annual Microbubble Symposium will include an exclusive wine tasting session lead by local Yorkshire man, Scott Hanby, Account Manager from Tate Smith in Malton. Previous to this role he was the Assistant Manager at Costcutter in Boston Spa.
There will be an opportunity to taste a selection of wines from across the world and the night will finish on one of Britain’s finest sparkling’s. Scott will be available for questions about the selection of wines throughout the session.
This opportunity is open to all attendees of the 2014 Microbubble Symposium at Weetwood Hall and will take place following the meal on the Monday 14th July.
Valeria Garbin - Speaker Profile
26 June 2014
Valeria Garbin is a Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Her research interests are in microscale transport phenomena with applications to biological flows and drug delivery, processing flows, formulated products, and self-assembly.
Dr Garbin has previously held post-doctoral researcher appointments in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (2009-2012) and in Applied Physics at the University of Twente (2007-2009), where she was funded by a Rubicon fellowship of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). She holds a PhD from the Department of Physics at Università di Trieste, and a first degree in Physics from Università di Padova.
Poster and Oral Presentations announced!
13 June 2014
We are pleased to announce that the following people have been accepted to present an Oral Presentation at this year’s Microbubble Symposium:
- Michiel Versluis – University of Twente
- Klazina Kooiman – University Medical Centre, Rotterdam
- Guillaume Lajoinie – University of Twente
- Tim Segers – University of Twente
In addition to the Oral Presentations we can confirm the following delegates will be submitting posters, which will be showcased on the Monday evening during the Poster session, a prize will be presented to the best one on the Tuesday at the end of the Symposium. The following submissions are from:
- Radwa Abou-Saleh – University of Leeds
- Maarten Callens – KU Leven
- Adam Churchman – University of Leeds
- Ja’Afar Fairuzeta – Imperial College London
- Chris Fury - NPL
- Sevan Harput - University of Leeds
- Maarten Kok – University of Twente
- Gael Léauté – University of Leeds
- Victoria Mico – University of Leeds
- Sally Peyman – University of Leeds
- Mark Tarn – University of Hull
- Tom Van Rooji – University Medical Centre, Rotterdam
- Erik Verboven – KU Leven
- Sunjie Ye – University of Leeds
Speaker Profile - Sascha Klibanov
10 June 2014
Alexander (Sascha) Klibanov is an Associate Professor in the Cardiovascular Division (Department of Medicine) at University of Virginia in Charlottesville VA. He is a resident member of Cardiovascular Research Centre, and has a joint appointment at UVA, BME and Radiology. His research interests are in the area of targeted (molecular) imaging and targeted drug delivery, especially in the area of contrast ultrasound. He is a co-founder and a (minority) shareholder of Targeson, a startup in the area of preclinical use of microbubble contrast agents.
Dr Klibanov is a graduate of Moscow University Chemistry Department; his PhD is from the Cardiology Research Centre in Moscow. When he moved to the US in 1991, he completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Leaf Huang, first at University of Tennessee, then at the University of Pittsburgh, and in 1993 moved into industry, to Mallinckrodt in St. Louis, to work on Microbubbles full-time. In 2001, in order to continue his contrast ultrasound studies, he moved to academia, to University of Virginia.
Speaker Profile - Jose Manuel Gordillo Arias de Saavedra
5 June 2014
Jose Manuel Gordillo Arias de Saavedra obtained his PhD degree at Sevilla University in December 2011. After a postdoctoral stay in Havard during 2002, he worked for one year as an assistant Professor at University Carlos III, Madrid. In 2004 he got a permanent position at Sevilla University, where he currently teaches Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics and heads the Fluid Mechanics Research Group.
Gordillo's research interests cover different fields of Fluid Mechanics: dynamics and breakup of drops and bubbles, generation of monodisperse microemlusions and microbubbles using microfluidic devices, propagation and growth of unstable waves in open shear flows and the sudden impact of solids against free interfaces or the splash of drops on solid surfaces.
From the point of view of applications, he has co-authored two licensed patents related to the generation of monodisperse microbubbles for ultrasound imaging and ultrasound cleaning purposes and has contributed to the design of a type of microfluidic devices widely used in many laboratories to generate foams or microemulsions.
He is also one of the elected Euromech Council members.
Speaker Profile - Edward Leen
3 June 2014
Professor Edward Leen received his MB, ChB, BAO, MD degrees in 1984, 1994 respectively, from the Faculty of Medicine at the University College Dublin and his FRCR in 1994 from the Royal College of Radiologist in London. He is an active member of the RCR, RSNA, BMUS, ESR, ESGAR, EFSUMB & ICUS.
He was the Consultant Radiologist at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary from 1995 to 2007. From 2007 to date, he is Professor of Radiology in the Faculty of Medicine and heads the Clinical Ablative Therapy Service at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust London based at the Hammersmith Hospital Campus.
Professor Leen pioneered the clinical use of microbubble ultrasound contrast agents in liver imagin for diagnostic and interventional applications with a longstanding interest in altered hepatic haemodynamics and micro-metastases and albative therapy in oncology. He leads the clinical ultrasound research group with more recent interests focused on the microbubble ultrasound assessment of altered tissue perfusion/inflammation and improved drug delivery through sono/electroporation. He has authored and co-authored over 100-peer reviewed journal articles & over 100 convference proceedings. He has been a member and chairman of advisory baords for various public offices/learned societies, including NCRI (UK), INCA (Paris), RCR (UK), EFSUMB etc, and for numerous pharmaceutical and medical diagnostic companies.
Speaker Profile - Ian Miller
30 May 2014
Ian Miller is a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow in the department of physiology and medical physics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) under the supervision of Dr. Annette Byrne. His research interests include angiogenesis inhibitors, angiogenesis inhibitor toxicities, multi-modality imaging technologies, animal models of colorectal cancer, glioblastoma and patient dreived xenograft models of cancer.
Dr Miller's current focuses on the role of bevacizumab in combination with clinicially relevant FOLFOX chemotherapy protocols in animal models of colorectal cancer utlizing contrast enhanced ultrasound. This work is undertaken as part of the FP7 European grant ANGIOPREDICT and is used to validate clinical and in silico protocols.
In ANGIOPREDICT, academic cancer biologists and industry-based biotechnology researchers work together with clinicians to identify biomarkers to predict whether individual metastatic colorectal cancer patients will respond positively to bevacizumab (Avastin) combination therapy.
Speaker Profile - Dr Neil Thomson
28 May 2014
Neil Thomson is a Reader in Biological Physics and Bionanotechnology with a joint position between the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, UK. He obtained his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Physics from Bristol University in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He joined the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics Group, Leeds in March 2000, after postdoctoral positions at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA (1995-1997), the University of Nottingham, UK (1998) and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland (1999(.
He is an expert in the development and application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) applied to biological materials and nanostructures. He has currently published about 70 peer-reviewed aticles and 5 book chapters and has an h-index of 30. He is on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports. He is a member of the Leeds Microbubble Consortium, which aims to use therapeutic lipid-based microbubbles to treat colorectal cancer. Within the consortium, he leads the use of AFM methods to physically characterize functionalised lipid-shelled microbubbles.
Speaker Profile - Juergen K. Willmann
22 May 2014
Juergen K. Willmann is a member of the School of Medicine at Stanford University, USA. His clinical focus is around Abdominal and Pelvic Radiology. Juergen is a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and Bio-X in addition to his role as Associate Professor of Radiology and Section Chief of Body Imaging. Furthermore, he is the Principal Investigator of the Translational Molecular Imaging Lab at Stanford University.
Poster presentations at the upcoming Condensed Matter in Paris Conference
20 May 2014
Victoria Mico and Adam Churchman have been asked to present their poster at the Condensed Matter in Paris Conference this Summer.
The conference will run from 24th - 29th August 2014 and will be held at the 'Universite Paris Descartes'. It is an international conference covering all aspects of Condensed Matter Physics, including Soft Matter Condensed Matter, Liquids Physics, Biophysics, material Science and so on.
Victoria and Adam's area of focus will be centred around 'Drops and emulsions versus bubbles and foams' mini-colloquium, which links in with the Microbubble work they are involved in.
Congratulations to both Adam and Victoria.
Speaker Profile - Abraham (Abe) Lee
15 May 2014
Abraham (Abe) Lee is Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at University of California, Irvine. His research interests include micro/nanofluidics, biosensors, point of care diagnostics, BioMEMS, cell sorting, materials synthesis and targeted imaging/therapeutics
In addition to his research focus and teaching, Abe is PI of the BioMiNT Lab and also directs the newly formed NSF I/UCRC: Center for Advanced Design & Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM). His lab's research focus is in developing the microscale and nanoscale platform technologies for the interrogation and manipulation of biological and physiological activities.
Speaker Profile - T.G.Leighton FRS FRng
12 May 2014
Timothy Leighton is Professor of Ultrasonics and Underwater Acoustics at the University of Southampton, UK; and Associate Dean with responsibility for research at the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment (a Faculty of ~300 staff and >500 PhD students). His interests are in acoustics in liquids, from acoustical oceanography to biomedical ultrasonics to extra-terrestrial acoustics. He has developed pioneering sonar and radar systems, invented medical devices currently in use in hospitals, and devices for the oil, gas and nuclear industries. He was part of the team that co-authored the current guidelines for ultrasonic scanning, which have now been applied to around 2 billion foetuses. He has been awarded Fellowships of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Physics (IoP), the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and the Institute of Acoustics (IoA).
He has been awarded the 2014 Rayleigh Medal of the (IoA); the 2013 Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal (ASA); the 2006 Paterson Medal (IoP); the 2009 R. W. B. Stephens Medal (IoA); the inaugural (2004) Early Career Medal and Award of the International Commission of Acoustics; the 2002 Tyndall Medal (IoA); and the 1994 A. B. Wood Medal (IoA). He also received the Institute of Chemical Engineering 2012 Award for “Water Management and Supply”; the inaugural (2004) International Medwin Prize for Acoustical Oceanography (ASA); and the 2008 ‘Medical & Healthcare’ award from ‘The Engineer’. The Royal Society awarded him the 2011 Brian Mercer Award for Innovation.
Speaker Profile - Michiel Postema
6 May 2014
Michiel holds an MSc (Utrecht) in geophysics and a Doctorate (Twente) in the physics of fluids. He was awarded an Emmy Noether research group at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and an EPSRC research fellowship at The University of Hull. Michiel's been appointed visiting Professor at the University of Orléans (2010), The University of Dundee (2012), Technion (2012), and full Professor of Experimental Acoustics at the University of Bergen (2010).
Michiel has written 110 scientific publications on acoustics and cavitation, including 50 first-author papers and 6 co-authored textbooks. He is an Associate Editor of Applied Acoustics (Elsevier), Associate Editor of Ultrasonics (Elsevier), member of the editorial board of Bubble Science, Engineering and Technology (Maney), Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, and board member of the International Congress on Ultrasonics (ICU).Specialties: Michiel's particular expertise lie in inventing devices to explore microfluidics. He also studies biomedical and non-medical applications of bubbles and droplets in sound fields under high-speed photography.
Two new papers feature in Langmuir and Soft Matter articles
1 May 2014
Two new papers have recently been published by members of the Microbubble team.
The first article featured in the Soft Matter magazine in February of this year, the focus was around the 'Self-assembly of actin scaffolds on lipid Microbubbles'. Ivolvment in the paper and research has come from George Heath, Radwa Abou-Saleh, Sally Peyman, Ben Johnson, Simon Connell and Steve Evans.
The latest paper to appear from published by Langmuir in April. The research focus look at 'Polyethylene glycol lipid shelled Microbubbles: abundance, stability and mechanical properties'. Contributions to the paper came from Radwa Abou-Saleh, Matthew Swain, Steve Evans and Neil Thomson.
Congratulations to all involved in both papers.
Speaker Profile - Valeria Garbin
30 April 2014
With the Microbubble Symposium just a few months away, each week we will feature one of our guest speakers so you can get a taste for their research and interest prior to the Symposium.
Valeria Garbin is a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Before moving to London in 2012, Valeria did her studies in Italy, and was a postdoctoral researcher in the Netherlands and the USA. Her research group is currently developing new ways to exploit bubble dynamics for processing of formulated products and for drug delivery.
Victoria Mico wins best Poster at PG Symposium
4 April 2014
Congratulations to Miss Victoria Mico for winning the best poster prize at this years Annual Postgraduate Symposium.
The poster Engineering lipid oil nano-droplets for hydrophobic drug delivery included input from Dr Sally Peyman and Professor Stephen Evans.
The PG Symposium is held every year at University of Leeds and is a great opportunity for PG in Physics and Astronomy to showcase their research in particular areas.
Leeds' Academic's speak at LCMB conference in India
28 February 2014
Professor Stephen Evans and Professor Richard Bushy recently attended the 'Light in Chemistry, Materials and Biology' in Kharagpur, India. Both were invited to speak at the conference and Richard was announced as the guest of honour.
The conference ran from 24th to 25th February 2014 at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur.
Microbubbles and Science feature at this year's Thinking Day Event!
20 February 2014
On Sunday 23rd February, Dr Louise Coletta and Dr Gemma Marston will be talking Microbubbles and Science at the Thinking Day Event: Science Fair. The event is taking place in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and girls 10+ will have the opportunity to learn more about the work going on around Microbubbles!
Microbubble Speakers announced
13 February 2014
We are pleased to confirm that the following speakers will be presenting at Microbubble Symposium 2014 at Weetwood Hall:
- Valeria Garbin - Imperial College London
- Jose Manuel Gordillo Arias de Saavedra - Sevilla University
- Alexander Klibanov - University of Virginia
- Abraham Lee - UC Irvine
- T.G.Leighton - University of Southampton
- Michiel Postema - University of Bergen
- Ronald Roy - University of Oxford
- Neil Thomson - University of Leeds
- Juergen Karl Willmann - Stanford University
Microbubble Group attend 19th European symposium on Ultrasound Contrast Imaging
30 January 2014
Members of the Leeds Microbubble group attended the 19th European symposium on Ultrasound Contrast Imagining in Rotterdam.
The conference ran from 23-24th January 2014, further details can be found on their website.
Dr Sally Peyman presented a poster on Microbubbles as stable drug-loadable structures toward targeted, triggered drug delivery.
Self-assembly of actin scaffolds on lipid microbubbles
22 January 2014
Microbubble team feature on front cover of Soft Matter for work on the self-assembly of actin scaffolds on bubbles