A couple of weeks ago an event was brought to my attention by the ever informative Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (OBR). The event was Playground, co-organised by Index Ventures and Nature Biotechnology, hosted in the fantastic Brewery venue in the city.

“this was just one step back from Seedcamp, but for biotech”

- Kevin Johnson

On Thursday 18 October 2012 I attended. In my paraphrased words of Kevin Johnson, partner at Index Ventures, this was just one step back from seedcamp, but for biotech. Seedcamp is like an accelerator for small tech startups. It funds these startups and provides them with a supportive network of experts and fellow entrepreneurs. Seedcamp is cool. Tech startups are cool. Biotech startups are terrifying.

My review article on solid-state nanopores went live this week Chemical Society Reviews advanced articles. The RSC publish articles online as soon as they’re publication ready however there is a short delay until the next print journal is published. Before the latest issue of the journal goes to press the publisher pics some cover art based on one of the articles in the journal.

The article that is attached to the cover art is made open access for 2 weeks and the artist receives prints of the art. Not to mention all the good exposure from being on the front of the journal! Needless to say that I am pretty much desperate to get the cover art for the journal which contains my paper.

So here it is:

Here is a quick illustration of a DNA molecule translocating through a solid state nano pore that I did in Illustrator and photoshop.

I’m a member of the Joushua Edel Group at Imperial College London, where one of our research themes is single molecule detection with solid-state nano pores. You can read more about the Edel research group here.