Padua-St Andrews Joint Call
The University of Padua and the University of St Andrews have been collaborating since the mid-1600s, but have recently launched a joint funding initiative in education and research. Padua has a strong research reputation, with 29 of its 32 departments accepted to bid for the Italian government’s Excellent Departments funding – more than any other Italian university. Padua and St Andrews have a longstanding student exchange and, in the context of our strategic partnership, work together in a variety of areas, including summer opportunities for students, virtual staff weeks and hosting staff visits. With calls for the 2023 joint seed funding scheme open, we had a look at how the 2022 joint seed funding awardees have worked together.
Professor Sharon Ashbrook (Chemistry, St Andrews) and Dr Enrico Bernardo (Industrial Engineering, Padua) are using their joint grant to explore ways to recycle pharmaceutical glass. The production of these pharmaceutical glass has soared in recent years, driven partly by the Covid-19 pandemic, but these cannot be easily recycled like glass jars and bottles used for food packaging. Dr Bernardo and his colleagues have been investigating waste glass for over 20 years, and have recently discovered a new potential uses for waste pharmaceutical glass in construction, 3D printing and filtration systems. Unlike conventional domestic glass recycling, which uses lot of energy to melt the glass, Dr Bernardo and his team intend to make a glass-powder gel, which can be made without heat. They will collaborate with Prof Ashbrook’s team, which is a leader using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy on disordered solids, to look at the pharmaceutical glass at an atomic level, and see how it can be safely recycled into new products.
Dr Janet Lovett, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at St Andrews, is working on a project entitled ‘Light Induced Dipolar Spectroscopy at High Field with EPR’ with Prof Marilena di Valentin (Chemical Sciences, Padua). Structural biology is currenty going through a revolution, as traditional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and X-Ray imaging techniques are being supplanted by computational predictive techniques. The two universities have a great complimentary strengths in light-induced dipolar electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (Padua) and high magnetic fields (St Andrews). Combining these techniques allows structural biologists to rapidly understand biological structures of animals and plants using the latest techniques. Dr Lovett said, “The opportunity to develop research visions with colleagues in Padua with this funding has been very useful. Coming out of the pandemic and being able to have face-to-face meetings and opportunities to see experiments in action, are very valuable for building future collaborations. The related science taking place in Padua is at a very high level and it is a pleasure to have a chance to discuss opportunities.”
Profesoor John Hudson (History) and Prof Stefania Gialdroni (Private Law and Critique of Law) are working together with fellow researchers and PhD students to explore transmission, translation and migration in Law (12th – 18th century). In a world where international legal affairs are now conducted in English, there are many problems with the translation of concepts, ideas and laws between people operating in non-English speaking countries. Similar problems were faced by those working as Europe’s Latin-based ius commune legal system broke down into a kaleidoscope of national languages, laws and ideas. Prof Hudson said, “We are already looking forward greatly to our pair of workshops, in May and September 2023. Members of the team have been involved in online ‘work in progress’ sessions together, which will ensure that momentum is established even before the workshops.” The funding connects interdisciplinary research teams at Padua and St Andrews who have both received European Research Council funding in the past, and allows them to further develop their research links.
Professor Gil Guastoni Rosenthal (Padua) and Dr David M. Shuker (St Andrews) are working together to address a controversial topic in evolutionary biology: why do animals choose to choose their mates? This debate has long been acrimonius, split between those who believe animals choose their mates to produce healthy offspring, and those who believe they are drawn in by sexual attraction. The Padua and St Andrews reasearchers want to move past this impasse, and ask whether mate choices gives animals what they ‘want,’ what they ‘need’ or what they ‘like.’ All of these have separate reward systems in the brain! By hosting reciprocal workshops at Padua and St Andrews, and bringing both international researchers and student trainees into the discussion, Prof Rosenthal and Dr Shuker hope to offer a new solution to a longstanding problem.