Major success for Cardiff Chemistry from funding council

Figures just released from the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) show that Cardiff School of Chemistry has been very successful in securing research funding. For the period April 2014 – March 2015, statistics show that the School of Chemistry has a success rate of 43% based on the number of applications, and 38% based on value. These success rates are well above the average for UK institutions, which are both 26% based on number and value.

The BBSRC supports fundamental research, and it is one of seven Research Councils working together as Research Councils UK, that are funded by the Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The new BBSRC research funding awarded includes projects to investigate reaction-coupled dynamics in enzyme catalysis, Light-responsive building blocks for synthetic biology and development of software tools for structure elucidation of synthetic and natural product peptide mixtures. Professor Rudolf Allemann, Dr Joel Loveridge and Dr James Redman are the main successful investigators on these projects, which total just under £1M.

Chemistry is a central discipline that is fundamental in underpinning many areas of science, and these new research projects are just some examples of how chemistry interfaces with biology and biochemistry. This approach is mirrored in many other areas of Chemistry across the School at Cardiff.

Head of the School of Chemistry, Professor Rudolf Allemann said, “We are really pleased that we have been able to secure such significant new funding for these exciting projects. This is a fascinating era for chemistry as it impacts so widely on all of our everyday lives. This important research at the interface of chemistry and biology is continually providing us with new insight into how the world around us works.”