{"id":2507,"date":"2017-11-14T13:52:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T13:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","slug":"my-cardiff-is-light-emitting-molecules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2017\/11\/14\/my-cardiff-is-light-emitting-molecules\/","title":{"rendered":"My Cardiff is\u2026 light emitting molecules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Ian Weeks (BSc 1976, PhD 1980, DSc 2009)<\/span> Acting head of Cardiff\u2019s School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

Ian\u2019s passion for science and invention started early. Even in his school days, he could be found making lasers from scratch, rummaging round the back of old TV sets and mixing chemical concoctions that, for safety\u2019s sake, should probably have been left unmixed. \u201cI\u2019m amazed I survived,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

By his own admission, though, he was \u201cnever a scholar\u201d, adding \u201cI wasn\u2019t a great fit for formal education, and achieved less than impressive qualifications.\u201d He credits becoming an undergraduate at Cardiff University with enabling him to achieve his potential. \u201cI attended an Open Day and immediately felt at home here. And considering my old school chemistry teacher had reported I was \u201cunlikely to achieve much\u2026\u201d, I think my first class honours in Chemistry speaks volumes about the quality of the Cardiff culture of teaching and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

After taking both a BSc and PhD in Chemistry, Ian left for a brief period in industry. He returned to what was then the Welsh National School of Medicine to start postdoctoral research in medical biochemistry.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists at the time were searching for better ways of measuring clinically important biomarkers. Working within the School of Medicine, I was able to apply my knowledge of chemistry to this problem. My eureka moment led to the design and synthesis of a light-emitting molecule that could be spontaneously coupled to an antibody molecule, providing the basis of a new generation of tests for disease diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian\u2019s discovery is now used in hundreds of millions of diagnostic tests each year, including tests for cancer, diabetes, and to screen donated blood for HIV and hepatitis. His team\u2019s work has been recognised with a Queen\u2019s Anniversary Prize, and been included in Universities UK\u2019s list of the \u2018top 100 life-changing discoveries\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am constantly amazed how a few experiments I undertook back in the 1980s created real global impact,\u201d Ian says. \u201cKey to this success was the faith demonstrated in my work by senior colleagues, at a time when innovation and commercialisation of research by universities was far less developed than it is today. It is testimony to the skill and expertise of the numerous people who are ultimately required to translate major innovations from bench to bedside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian has recently contributed to a collaboration between Cardiff University, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and the global science company PerkinElmer, to develop a more reliable method for screening newborn babies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI have not yet quenched my thirst for innovation. Much of my work involves supporting the next generation of innovators as we tackle unmet clinical need, for example, in the areas of cancer, type 2 diabetes and wound healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaboration between academics, clinicians and industry will be the key to unlocking scientific discovery and creating tomorrow\u2019s innovations.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professor Ian Weeks (BSc 1976, PhD 1980, DSc 2009)<\/span> Acting head of Cardiff\u2019s School of Medicine.","protected":false},"author":1438,"featured_media":2509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,86,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff-connect","category-medicine","category-our-alumni"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2541,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions\/2541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}