James Birrell

Day 2, over and out! 🥳 Our final session of the day featured talks from Stephen Ragsdale, Noémie Lalaoui, Christine Cavazza, Laura Opdam, Henrick Land and Manon Lachmann! What better way to round off the day than with a poster session? ☺️👩‍🔬 #ICH2026 #leicester

Another day filled with brilliant talks and great discussions! 🤩 Thank you to Serena DeBeer for delivering a fantastic plenary to kick off! Thank you as well to all of our speakers, poster presenters and sponsors for making Day 3 such a success! 👏🔬 #ICH2026 #leicester

The votes have been counted... Are you a winner? 👀🤭 #ICH2026 #leicester

A big congrats to all poster prize winners and the Best ECR Talk winner, Manon Lachmann!!! 🥳👏 #ICH2026 #leicester

That's a wrap on ICH2026 in Leicester! 🎬 What an incredible few days it's been! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for making this a memorable one! We hope you've enjoyed ICH Leicester as much as we have! Until next time, Hydrogenators! 👋🧪 #ICH2026 #leicester

Session 1 has wrapped! 🥳 What a great morning of science we've had! We heard from two invited speakers and also heard two oral presentations! We also enjoyed some exciting flash poster presentations and heard from our sponsors!✨🧪 Time to refuel over lunch! 🍽️ #ICH2026 #leicester

Session 2 is all done! ✅ We've just enjoyed five amazing talks from Kirstin Gutekunst, Holly Reeve, Filipe Pinto, Aniket Banerjee and Karen Trchounian! Let's keep the flow of electrons going... right into Session 3!⚡️😊 #ICH2026 #leicester

Day 2 is off to a great start! 🎉 We’ve already enjoyed a very interesting opening plenary from Chris Greening, followed by a great keynote lecture from Thomas Happe, and there’s still plenty more to come! We can’t wait to see what the rest of the day brings! Stay tuned! 😉😊 #ICH2026 #leicester

🚨Helpful Hydrogenators spotted🚨 Don’t be afraid to ask any of our Helpful Hydrogenators for help around campus!📍😊 #ICH2026 #leicester

Day 1, complete! ✅ A brilliant opening day at #ICH2026, with a warm welcome, inspiring opening talks, and a fantastic reception to round it all off. Bonus points if you can spot one of our organisers in Prof. Kylie Vincent's plenary... 👀 On to Day 2! 🚀 #ICH2026 #leicester

1 more day until #ICH2026! We’re so excited to welcome everyone and hear about all the amazing research underway! In true Leicester fashion, expect a little rain tomorrow🌦️ so a bring a light jacket or an umbrella! The rest of the week is looking sunny! ☀️ See you tomorrow! #ICH2026 #leicester

Who's interested in time-resolved serial crystallography on [FeFe]-hydrogenase?? Check out Moritz' new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The only thing more coordinated than our metallocentres is our conference prep 😏🥳 See you soon at #ICH2026 in #leicester!

Any questions you may have about the conference or the registration, let me or my co-organizers know! We are looking forward to seeing you at Leicester very soon! 😃

Last two days for Early-bird registration to come to the exciting International Conference on Hydrogenases and other redox Metalloenzymes! Please, don’t miss this amazing opportunity to discuss great science!

See you in Leicester 🙌🏻

👇👇👇👇 Please register now! It is going to be an amazing event!

🚨🚨Extension Alert!🚨🚨 There is still time to catch early-bird registration for ICH2026 - deadline extended until 17 May. We have been working hard to prove that the sun does shine in the UK, and look forward to welcoming you to Leicester this Summer! le.ac.uk/chemistry/re...

Probably the best conference for biocatalysis & bioinorganic chemistry this year!

Registration is now open! The 14th edition of the International Conference on Hydrogenase and Other Redox Metalloenzymes (ICH2026)e at the University of Leicester 26 to 30 July 2026. @jamesbirrell.bsky.social @rmlab.bsky.social @ir-paash.bsky.social le.ac.uk/chemistry/re...

The International Conference on Hydrogenase and Other Redox Metalloenzymes takes place @uniofleicester.bsky.social in the UK, 26-30 July 2026. A reminder that there is still time to submit an abstract and register for this exciting conference! le.ac.uk/chemistry/re...

Thank you to my amazing collaborators and the PhD student doing the work, Sam! Please have a read, it is a really interesting paper!

An elegant engineering strategy to perform step-wise truncations of the iron-sulfur cluster domains in semi-synthetic [FeFe] hydrogenases to investigate in detail the influence on the catalytic properties of the enzyme and the inhibitors binding!

I couldn't be happier to see this nice piece of work out! It is like my baby project, which I dedicated a lot of time and effort! lnkd.in/eKpyxrM5http...

Congratulations @rmlab.bsky.social ! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Vincent, Morra, and Rodríguez-Maciá demonstrate that truncating the electron transfer domain of [FeFe]-hydrogenase does *not* diminish their catalytic efficiency (via ACS Catalysis). doi.org/10.1021/acsc...

Our first foray into the P450 world. Thanks to @bellp450enzyme.bsky.social for sharpening our GC-MS skill set @jamesbirrell.bsky.social for the microwaves😃 and Lewis for persevering 🧪

1️⃣ 𝗠𝗜𝗕𝗧𝗣-𝗕𝗕𝗦𝗥𝗖 - 𝟮𝟳𝘁𝗵 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fa... 2️⃣ 𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔-𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗖 - 𝟳𝘁𝗵 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: centa.ac.uk/studentship/... Any questions or more information? Please email me, happy to help! #metalloenzymes #biohybridcatalysts #sustainablechemistry #greenchemistry

Are you excited about #metalloenzymes and #biohybridcatalysts? Are you interested in investigating new approaches for #sustainable and #greenchemistry? If so, I have 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗣𝗵𝗱 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 to join my group in 📅 Sept 2026 under the schemes. 👇+Info👇

We have a 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 (𝗣𝗗𝗥𝗔) position for a project in collaboration with my colleagues Phil Ash & James Pickering, via the AMBER Postdoctoral Programme funded by MSCActions. Come and join us at @uniofleicester! 👇+info👇

Information about the project here: le.ac.uk/research/ins... Information about the position and how to apply: jobs.le.ac.uk/vacancies/11... Deadline 7 Dec 2025! For any enquires please send an email!

Delightful combination of spectroscopies (electronic, microwave) and protein crystallography in @jarworrall.bsky.social's new paper on cytochrome P450 decarboxylase from Staphylococcus aureus 🤩 doi.org/10.1016/j.ji...

We are delighted to confirm that the and Other Redox Metalloenzymes will take place from 26-30 July 2026 at the University of Leicester, UK. Details of the conference, including regularly updated confirmed speakers, are available on our website (link in bio).

Congrats @rmlab.bsky.social and co-authors on "Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy as a tool to reveal the vibrational and molecular structure of [FeFe] hydrogenases" in Chemical Science pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Join us next Tuesday May 27 for a Desktop Seminar on the Chemistry of Inorganic Clusters! Featuring talks and live Q&A from Stephen Ragsdale (University of Michigan) and Patrick Holland (Yale University), this is one you don't want to miss! Register and find more details rsc.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

We probed both directions, and it really seems to be the F-domain that modulates the on/off dynamics. We didn't investigate DdH tho...

We have positions for pCNF SDM of CpI in a recent grant application... Very encouraging to see Kylie's data!

We believe that these protein-protein-interactions propell fast & repeated one-electron-transfer reactions, driving multi-electron redox catalysis with a one-electron mediator. In hydrogenase, and other oxidoreductases as well. Find all the details in the paper: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Uli's brilliant microscale thermophoresis experiments show that *only* reduced ferredoxin binds to hydrogenase, which facilitates assigning the secondary structural changes to redox changes and a shift from an "attractive" to a "repulsive" configuration.

Infrared difference spectra reveal that the reduction of ferredoxin is accompanied with larger secondary structural changes - clearly associated with the "F-domain" of [FeFe]-hydrogenase, as reference experiments with "minimal hydrogenase" CrHydA1 lack this spectral feature. A surprise‼️

Interestingly, in the ferredoxin from C. pasteurianum, reduction alone does *not* affect the nitrile frequency. Only in complex with [FeFe]-hydrogenase CpI, redox changes affect the artificial amino acid...

Ross @milton-group.bsky.social came up with a very similar idea: how about introducing cyanophenylalanine to a (bacterial) ferredoxin that binds two [4Fe-4S] clusters? One might learn where the electron resides as most ferredoxins are considered one-electron redox mediators... 🧵

Lovely stuff Zehui et al.!

Applying this genetic approach to [FeFe]-hydrogenase, the nitrile band allows probing the FeS cluster redox states AND the H-cluster. This will be a powerful tool in other FeS proteins as well! doi.org/10.1002/cbic...

First off, let me highlight recent work from Vincent et al.: the authors modified plant ferredoxin with cyanophenylalanine and succeeded in measuring FeS-redox-dependent nitrile band shifts in the IR spectra.

Who's ready to talk about ferredoxin?

It is a real pleasure to collaborate with you guys! 😊

Very happy to see this out! Take a look at this interesting paper on the application of 2D IR to [FeFe] hydrogenases 👇