SRUK Oxford members and friends will be meeting at The Oxford Retreat (1-2 Hythe Bridge St, Oxford, OX1 2EW) at 12 (noon) on 31st October for a day of science, food and fun! SRUK Oxford members David Egea and Ana Silvan will break the ice by sharing a piece of their research and interests. From then on, we will keep the scientific and non-scientific conversation going over lunch! Please, don’t forget to register to attend: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/science-and-lunch-in-the-pub-with-sruk-oxford-tickets-191591995817.
About our SRUK Oxford members David and Ana:
David Egea Arrebola studied chemistry at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona where later he also obtained his master’s in chemical research. He then moved to Oxford to start his PhD under the supervision of Profesor Stephen Fletcher, where he is currently working on the development of new metal-catalysed asymmetric reactions in the field of Organic Chemistry.
He will tell us about “Breaking the symmetry in drug design”. Most drugs, like our hands, exist as two mirror images of each other. The chemical and physical properties of the two “hands” of the drug are identical, but they start to behave differently when they interact with our bodies: whereas one of the hands can cause beneficial effects such as pain relief, the other can be as deadly as a poison. How we can distinguish and prepare only the one hand of the drug that is beneficial for us, will be the topic of this talk.
Ana Silvan studied biology at Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, then she got an MSc in Human Assisted Reproduction. Since then, she has worked in different fertility clinics in Spain and she currently works as a senior clinical embryologist at Concept Fertility clinic in London.
She will talk about “Fertility treatments. What is it all about?”. Infertility, in vitro fertilization, sperm freezing…all of us have heard these terms before, but do we know what they mean? What happens inside the laboratory of a fertility clinic and how do we help people with fertility problems?
