22 Jun 2015
Vitamin D `not guilty’ in heart disease and winter deaths
The belief that vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunshine – like childhood rickets a hundred years ago – causes increased heart disease and deaths in winter has been challenged by research from the University of Dundee. The research, led by Emeritus Professor Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe and published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, suggests that vitamin D is not guilty and is unimportant in cardiovascular disease and winter deaths, whatever its role in other diseases. Vitamin D was first linked with excess winter disease in 1981, the same year that the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit ...
22 Jun 2015
Graduation 2015
Thousands of students from around the world will be joined by family and friends to celebrate their academic successes when the University of Dundee hosts its annual Summer Graduation ceremonies this week. Six ceremonies will take place at the Caird Hall over the course of the week as almost 3500 students feel the tap of the Dundee bonnet as they receive their degrees, diplomas and postgraduate qualifications. Students in their robes will fill City Square before and after each ceremony, with many later making their way to the Garden Parties held in the heart of campus. The traditional Dundee...
19 Jun 2015
Stop and search pilot evaluation published
Researchers at the University of Dundee and Edinburgh Napier University have published a report evaluating a new approach to stop and search piloted by Police Scotland. The research was carried out by Dr Megan O’Neill, from Dundee, and Edinburgh Napier’s Dr Liz Aston. It commends Fife Division for their efforts to make stop and search more effective and address public concerns about the measures and highlights elements of the pilot, which can be regarded as good practice. The authors also make 19 recommendations for improvement, including how to deal with problematic aspects of consensual sea...
19 Jun 2015
RIAS Design Tutor Award for Dr Neil Burford
Dr Neil Burford, of the University of Dundee, has won the bi-annual Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) Scottish Design Tutor award (2014-2016). Dr Burford has been recognised by RIAS for his outstanding talents in teaching in Architecture & Planning at the University. He has co-led a pioneering research and teaching project, the MacroMicro Studio, in the University’s Botanic Garden. This is a zero-carbon research-led teaching studio which has designed and built a small prototype 'off-grid' building, with students engaged throughout the project. Dr Burford said, “I am ab...
17 Jun 2015
Discovery of a novel antimalarial compound published in Nature
The details of the discovery, properties and mechanism of action of a novel antimalarial compound, DDD107498, have been published in the journal Nature. DDD107498 has the potential to treat malaria patients in a single dose, including those with malaria parasites resistant to current medications, and help reduce the transmission of the parasite. The compound was identified through a collaboration between the University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). “The publication describes the discovery and profiling of this exciting new compound,” said...