Leverhulme Trust grants awarded

26 July 2005

Oxford University has won support from the Leverhulme Trust totalling more than £640,000 for both humanities and science research projects.

Dr Arthur MacGregor and Professor Nicholas Mayhew at the Ashmolean Museum will make the artefact collection and documentary archives of the 19th century archaeologist, numismatist and geologist Sir John Evans available as a comprehensive research resource.

A joint project between Dr Antony Fairbanks at the Chemistry Research Laboratory and Professor Edith Sim in Pharmacology will employ chemical synthesis and compound testing to research new therapeutic agents against tuberculosis and other mycobacteria.

Professor Fraser Armstrong at Inorganic Chemistry and Professor Sarah Gurr at Plant Sciences will investigate and develop an application of fungal enzymes called laccases, which have great potential as ‘green’ energy sources and cleaners. Laccases catalyse the clean and efficient conversion of oxygen to water, and the researchers plan to establish ways of attaching them to electrodes to make them function as fuel cell electrocatalysts.

Professor John Simons and Dr Lavina Snoek at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory will exploit a new laser-based strategy which will probe the structure, bonding and conformation of biomolecular ions. Understanding the factors which control their shapes and the ways in which they interact with each other and with their environment is key to understanding biological processes ranging from metabolism to immunology and pharmacology.