Dr Edward Sayers
Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
- sayersej@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 (0)29 2251 0139
- Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3NB
Overview
I joined the Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2007 to undertake my PhD in correlative microscopy under Prof Arwyn Jones, Dr Chris Allender (both School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences) and Prof David Barrow (School of Engineering). After receiving my doctorate, I continued in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences to investigate uptake and transcytosis of various nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems across biological barriers as part of a multi-university multi-industry collaboration.
Following my first PDRA I then got a position researching the efficiency of mRNA delivery following lipid nanoparticle delivery into various cancer models with AstraZeneca.
I am currently an Industrial Research fellow working with Cardiff University and collaborating Universities in Ireland to support life science SMEs in Wales and Ireland.
Additional Roles
Managing the confocal microscopy facility and co-manage the high throughput cell imaging system.
Public Engagement
I am passionate about public engagement in science and have contributed to several engagement activities under the School's ethos of 'Science of Medicines.'
- London International Youth Science Forum at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, July 2019
- Science Sessions at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, December 2018 and 2019
- Science of the Sea at the National Eisteddfod for Wales Cardiff Bay, August 2018
- Science in Health at the University Hospital Wales, March 2018
- Introduction to blood and wound healing with Allensbank Primary School, January 2016 and Feb 2017
- Biology Rocks with Cancer Research UK at Cardiff Museum, September 2015
- Primary school interactive presentation on DNA and cells at the James Elliman Academy, Slough, July 2015 and 2016
- Hand on demonstration at the Darwin Centre with Cancer Research UK, February 2015
- Wounds and Healing show/stall with the Wellcome Trust at Green Man Festival, August 2011 & 2012
Biography
Publications
2022
- Aikman, B. et al. 2022. Highly-fluorescent BODIPY-functionalised metallacages as drug delivery systems: synthesis, characterisation and cellular accumulation studies. Dalton Transactions 51(19), pp. 7476-7490. (10.1039/D2DT00337F)
- Sayers, E. J., Palmer, I., Hope, L., Hope, P., Watson, P. and Jones, A. T. 2022. Fluid-phase endocytosis and lysosomal degradation of bovine lactoferrin in lung cells. Pharmaceutics 14(4), article number: 855. (10.3390/pharmaceutics14040855)
- Sayers, E. J., Barlow, V. L., Tsai, Y. and Jones, A. T. 2022. Quantitative subcellular analysis of cyclic cell-penetrating peptide EJP18 in nonadherent cells. In: Cell Penetrating Peptides., Vol. 2383. Methods in Molecular Biology book series Springer, pp. 211-228., (10.1007/978-1-0716-1752-6_14)
2021
- Padalino, G. et al. 2021. Anti-schistosomal activities of quinoxaline-containing compounds: From hit identification to lead optimisation. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 226, article number: 113823. (10.1016/j.ejmech.2021.113823)
2020
- Nödling, A. et al. 2020. Cyanine dye mediated mitochondrial targeting enhances the anti-cancer activity of small-molecule cargoes. Chemical Communications 56(34), pp. 4672-4675. (10.1039/C9CC07931A)
- Wymant, J. M., Sayers, E. J., Muir, D. and Jones, A. T. 2020. Strategic trastuzumab mediated crosslinking driving concomitant HER2 and HER3 endocytosis and degradation in breast cancer. Journal of Cancer 11(11), pp. 3288-3302. (10.7150/jca.32470)
- Giannakopoulou, N. et al. 2020. Four-wave-mixing microscopy reveals non-colocalisation between gold nanoparticles and fluorophore conjugates inside cells. Nanoscale 12(7), pp. 4622-4635. (10.1039/C9NR08512B)
- Eissa, N., Sayers, E., Birch, D., Patel, S., Tsai, Y., Nielsen, H. M. and Jones, A. 2020. EJP18 peptide derived from the juxtamembrane domain of epidermal growth factor receptor represents a novel membrane-active cell-penetrating peptide. Biochemical Journal 477(1), pp. 45-60. (10.1042/BCJ20190452)
2019
- Sayers, E. J. et al. 2019. Endocytic profiling of cancer cell models reveals critical factors influencing lipid nanoparticle mediated mRNA delivery and protein expression. Molecular Therapy 27(11), pp. 1950-1962. (10.1016/j.ymthe.2019.07.018)
- Woods, B. et al. 2019. Highly luminescent metallacages featuring bispyridyl ligands functionalised with BODIPY for imaging in cancer cells. Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry 199, article number: 110781. (10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2019.110781)
- Lorenzer, C. et al. 2019. Targeted delivery and endosomal cellular uptake of DARPin-siRNA bioconjugates: Influence of linker stability on gene silencing. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics 141, pp. 37-50. (10.1016/j.ejpb.2019.05.015)
- Patel, S. G. et al. 2019. Cell-penetrating peptide sequence and modification dependent uptake and subcellular distribution of green florescent protein in different cell lines. Scientific Reports 9(1), pp. -., article number: 6298. (10.1038/s41598-019-42456-8)
2018
- He, L., Sayers, E. J., Watson, P. and Jones, A. T. 2018. Contrasting roles for actin in the cellular uptake of cell penetrating peptide conjugates. Scientific Reports 8(1), article number: 7318. (10.1038/s41598-018-25600-8)
- Sayers, E. J. et al. 2018. Switching of macromolecular ligand display by thermoresponsive polymers mediates endocytosis of multi-conjugate nanoparticles. Bioconjugate Chemistry 29(4), pp. 1030-1046. (10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.7b00704)
2017
- Roberts-Dalton, H. D. et al. 2017. Fluorescence labelling of extracellular vesicles using a novel thiol-based strategy for quantitative analysis of cellular delivery and intracellular traffic. Nanoscale 9(36), pp. 13693-13706. (10.1039/C7NR04128D)
- Wymant, J., Moody, P., Sayers, E. and Jones, A. T. 2017. Poster 433: Receptor-antibody clustering induced endocytosis of HER2 has therapeutic potential in breast cancer. Presented at: EACR-AACR-SIC Special Conference 2017: The Challenges of Optimising Immuno and Targeted Therapies From Cancer Biology to the Clinic, Florence, Italy, 24-27 June 2017.
2015
- Moody, P. R., Sayers, E. J., Magnusson, J. P., Alexander, C., Borri, P., Watson, P. and Jones, A. T. 2015. Receptor crosslinking: a general method to trigger internalization and lysosomal targeting of therapeutic receptor: ligand complexes. Molecular Therapy 23(12), pp. 1888-1898. (10.1038/mt.2015.178)
- Bahnsen, J. S., Franzyk, H., Sayers, E. J. and Jones, A. T. 2015. Cell-penetrating antimicrobial peptides - prospectives for targeting intracellular infections. Pharmaceutical Research 32(5), pp. 1546-1556. (10.1007/s11095-014-1550-9)
2014
- Sayers, E. J., Cleal, K., Eissa, N. G., Watson, P. D. and Jones, A. T. 2014. Distal phenylalanine modification for enhancing cellular delivery of fluorophores, proteins and quantum dots by cell penetrating peptides. Journal of Controlled Release 195, pp. 55-62. (10.1016/j.jconrel.2014.07.055)
2012
- Jones, A. T. and Sayers, E. J. 2012. Cell entry of cell penetrating peptides and tales of tails wagging dogs. Journal of Controlled Release 161(2), pp. 582-591. (10.1016/j.jconrel.2012.04.003)
- Sayers, E. J. 2012. An encoded microwell array for multi-image analysis of cells. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.
2011
- Watkins, C. L., Sayers, E. J., Allender, C. J., Barrow, D. A., Fegan, C. D., Brennan, P. and Jones, A. T. 2011. Co-operative membrane disruption between cell-penetrating peptide and cargo: implications for the therapeutic use of the Bcl-2 converter peptide D-NuBCP-9-r8. Molecular Therapy 19(12), pp. 2124-2132. (10.1038/mt.2011.175)
Teaching
I teach confocal microscopy skills on the MSc Cancer Biology and Therapeutics course designing and delivering both a lecture and a lab based practical session.
I supervise MPharm students in the lab for their final year project.
I also perform one-to-one sessions to undergraduate, postgraduate and research staff on using the confocal microscope and the EVOS cell imaging system.
In 2018 I facilitated at the Drug Delivery Skills School for PhD students run by the BBSRC in Abingdon.
The main focus of my research is understanding endocytosis of nanoparticles and the functional delivery of their cargo. Here I utilise my expertise in advanced microscopy techniques and image analysis.
