Author: Wellcome Sanger Institute
Title: LifeLab - Free events highlight discovery on your doorstep
Reference Wellcome Sanger Institute 14 September 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Events and Celebrations
Subject: Researchers are helping to transform parts of Cambridgeshire into centres of discovery with hands-on, family-friendly activities in shopping centres, cafes and public spaces
Keywords: LifeLab; Laura Pellegrini; Wellcome Genome Campus; Wellcome Sanger Institute; European Bioinformatics Institute; Babraham Institute; University of Cambridge; events; Family-friendly activities; pop-up labs
Photographs:Author: McNeil Jr., Donald G.
Title: ‘Latent’ Tuberculosis? It’s Not That Common, Experts Find
Reference The New York Times 20 September 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Science
Subject: A study by Lalita Ramakrishnan, from the University of Cambridge Molecular Immunity Unit based in the LMB, has found that most people who fall seriously ill with tuberculosis do so within 2 years of getting infected, which has implications for public health strategy
Keywords: tuberculosis (TB); Lalita Ramakrishnan; University of Cambridge; latent infections; World Health Organization; HIV; antibiotics; zebrafish; “Lubeck disaster”; bedaquiline; delamanid
Photographs:Author: Scialom, Mike
Title: It’s a new day for Sosei Heptares
Reference Cambridge Independent 19 October 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Biotechnology
Subject: Chris Tate described working with Richard Henderson in founding Heptares as “a wonderful partnership which has carried on improving the science”, after the official opening of the Sosei Heptares Steinmetz Building at Granta Park.
Keywords: Richard Henderson; Chris Tate; Heptares Therapeutics; Sosei; pharmaceutical; G protein-coupled receptor (GCPRs); “superfamily”; StaR; Granta Park; The Steinmetz Building; Fiona Marshall
Photographs: Richard Henderson and Chris Tate outside the new building with Fiona Marshall and Malcolm WeirAuthor: Pool, Rebecca
Title: The Resolution Revolutionary
Reference Microscopy and Analysis
Year: 2018
Type: History - Reminiscences
Subject: How an Interest in an obscure branch of physics and faith in electron microscopy led to Richard Henderson winning his Nobel Prize
Keywords: Richard Henderson; Nobel Prize; Joachim Frank; Jacques Dubochet; CRISPR-CAS9; electron cryo-microscopy; Nigel Unwin; Max Perutz; bacteriorhodopsin; X-ray crystallography; Chris Russo; 3D image
Photographs: Richard Henderson holding one of his ball and spoke models.Author: MRC/UKRI News
Title: Decades of discovery set to revolutionise healthcare
Reference MRC/UKRI News 1 November 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Science
Subject: A summary of key milestones that show how discovery science has been translated into a novel technology set to revolutionise healthcare.
Keywords: Jim Watson; Francis Crick; Maurice Wilkins; Rosalind Franklin; double helix; X-ray diffraction; crystallography; Fred Sanger; Human Genome Project; ‘Sanger method”;bacteriophage virus; dideoxy chain; Nobel Prize; Sydney Brenner; John Sulston; C. elegans; sequencing; Nanopore sequencing; MinION
Photographs:Author: Sancar, Feyza
Title: For Difficult-to-Model Brain Diseases, Brain Organoids Come to the Rescue
Reference JAMA Network 20 November 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Science
Subject: Madeline Lancaster spoke to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) about her work on brain organoids and their potential future uses
Keywords: Madeline Lancaster; 3D; brain organoids; neurons; stem cells; embryo; glia; “minibrains”; cerebral cortical; microcephaly; neurogensis
Photographs:Author: Brackley, Paul
Title: Dr Jan Löwe on the next frontier for MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge
Reference Cambridge Independent 12 December 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Miscellaneous
Subject: Part one of an interview with Jan Löwe describes how a long-term vision has had such success for the LMB and how such an approach could be used by LMB scientists to map the brain
Keywords: Jan Löwe; Greg Winter; Richard Henderson; Nobel Prize factory; Hugh Pelham; cryo-electron microscopy; Aaron Klug; CT scanners; Sjors Scheres; 3D structure; X-ray crystallography; Venki Ramakrishnan; ribosome; Sydney Brenner; neurons; human brain
Photographs: Jan Löwe in his office, Jan outside the buildingAuthor: Brackley, Paul
Title: Bacteria rule the planet - and we need to understand them, says MRC LMB director Dr Jan Löwe
Reference Cambridge Independent 19 December 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Miscellaneous
Subject: In the second part of the interview with Jan Löwe, he describes his group’s research on the bacterial cytoskeleton and its importance in the fight against antimicrobial resistance
Keywords: Jan Löwe, director; bacteria; Antonie van Leeuwenhoek; “animalcules”; Royal Society; FtsZ; MreB; cytoskeleton; tubulin; actin; “homologue”; proharyotes; antibiotic; AZ-LMB Blue Sky Fund; computers; bioinformatics; Sjors Scheres; cryo-electron microscopy; eukaryotes
Photographs: Jan Löwe on staircase in atrium, in front of the building, in atrium, in his office and next to the DNA model in foyer. (Keith Heppell)Author: Micro Control Instruments
Title: Top Ten Neuroscience Breakthroughs of 2018
Reference Micro Control Instruments 7 January 2019
Year: 2019
Type: Science
Subject: A list of the top ten neuroscience breakthroughs of 2018 includes work by the LMB’s Sjors Scheres and Michel Goedert on tau protein folds and by Greg Jefferis on imaging the fly brain, as well as alumnus Jonny Kohl for his work mapping neural circuitry associated with parenting.
Keywords: Tau protein; Alzheimer’s disease; Sjors Scheres; Michel Goedert; frontotemporal dementia; Cryo-electron microscopy; misfolded; Pick’s disease; fly brain imaged; nanoscale resolution; 3D volume; synaptic level; Johnny Kohl; alumni; galanin-expressing neurons; optogenetic tools; parental circuitry
Photographs:Author: Cookson, Clive
Title: Brilliance in the genes: inside Britain’s ‘Nobel prize factory’
Reference Financial Times 23 January 2019
Year: 2019
Type: Science
Subject: A new film from the Financial Times featuring interviews with Jan Löwe, Madeline Lancaster, Richard Henderson, and Greg Jefferis, describing the importance of long-term thinking and collaboration in continued success.
Keywords: Jan Löwe; Madeline Lancaster; Richard Henderson; Greg Jefferis; ‘Nobel prize factory; stem cells; mini-brains 3D neural tissues; neurological conditions; cryo-electron microscopy; amorphous ice; near-atomic structure; structure-based drug design; AstraZeneca; collaborate; connectome; Alzheimer’s disease; fly brain; neurons; Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Photographs:Author: Oliveira, Carla C.
Title: Dr. Ana Casañal
Reference The RNA Society 5 February 2019
Year: 2019
Type: Career Structure
Subject: RNA Society member spotlight on Ana Casañal, postdoc in Lori Passmore’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, including Ana’s tips on overcoming research challenges and advice for junior researchers.
Keywords: Ana Casañal; Lori Passmore; macromolecular machines; mRNA; cleavage and polyadenylation factor (CPF); cryo-EM structure; scientific career
Photographs: Ana Casañal in labAuthor: Kimble, Judith
Title: John Sulston (1942-2018) - A visionary biologist with a deep social conscience
Reference Science 13 April 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Obituary
Subject: Judith Kimble looks back on the life and career of John Sulston.
Keywords: John Sulston; Human Genome Project; caenorhabditis elegans nematode; director Sanger Centre; daughter cell; The Common Thread; worm; embryo
Photographs: John Sulston outside the Sanger CentreAuthor: MRC Life
Title: Celebrating successes across the MRC
Reference MRC Life February-March 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Awards & Prizes
Subject: Two MRC LMB group leaders, both from the Structural Studies Division, have been honoured in the inaugural Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK
Keywords: M Madan Babu; John Briggs; The Blavatnik Awards; Structural Studies; New York Academy of Sciences; young scientist
Photographs: Portrait pictures of John Briggs and Madan BabuAuthor: Gait, Michael J.
Title: Daniel McGillivray Brown. 3 February 1923 - 24 April 2012
Reference Royal Society 7 November 2018
Year: 2018
Type: History - Reminiscences
Subject: Michael Gait’s Biographical Memoir about Dan Brown
Keywords: Dan Brown; nucleic acid; nucleosides; hydroxylamine on cytidine; ‘bis-adduct’; RNA; X-ray crystallography; Brian Clark; Sydney Brenner; John Karn; David Loakes; Daniela Rhodes; Brian Sproat; Paul Kong; Naveen Anand; John Walker; mis-pairing; bicyclic deoxyriboside (dP); memoir; John Smith; oligodeoxyribonucleotides; base-pairs; mutagenesis
Photographs: Photo of young Dan Brown in lab; Photo of Dan’s research notebook from 1982; Dan at the bench at LMB; Dan and wife with Mike Gait at a Symposium dinnerAuthor: Research Institute of Molecular Pathology
Title: Walther Flemming Award 2018 for Clemens Plaschka
Reference Research Institute of Molecular Pathology 21 August 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni - Awards & Prizes
Subject: Clemens Plaschka, a former post-doctoral researcher in Kiyoshi Nagai’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, has won the 2018 Walther Flemming Award.
Keywords: Clemens Plaschka; Walther Flemming Award; German Society for Cell Biology; kiyoshi Nagai; spliceosome; alumni: RNA
Photographs:Author: Schuh, Melina
Title: Taking a confident leap into uncertainty
Reference Nature Cell Biology 28 August 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni
Subject: Melina Schuh, a former group leader in the LMB’s Cell Biology Division, has written about her experiences setting up her group at the LMB while also starting a family, for a Focus on Women in Science collection of articles
Keywords: Melina Schuh; Matthew Freeman; Sean Munro; mouse oocytes; Group Leader; Cell Biology; meiotic genes; Max Planck Institute; women in science; Trim-Away; career
Photographs: Photo of Melina (MPI BPC)Author: Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation
Title: 2018 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science Leadership in RNA biology and in scientific mentorship
Reference The Lasker Foundation 13 September 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni - Awards & Prizes
Subject: Joan Argetsinger Steitz, a former post-doctoral researcher at the LMB, has been awarded the 2018 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for four decades of leadership in biomedical research and in scientific mentorship
Keywords: Joan Argetsinger Steitz: Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science; mRNA: alumni; mentoring; women in science; Jim Watson; mammalian cells; snurps
Photographs:Author: The Vallee Foundation
Title: 2018 Vallee Scholars Appointed
Reference The Vallee Foundation 3 October 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni - Awards & Prizes
Subject: LMB alumni Susan Shao and Tanmay Bharat are two of the five scientists to be awarded prestigious Vallee Scholarships in 2018.
Keywords: Vallee Foundation; Vallee Scholars; Tanmay Bharat; electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM); tomography (cryo-ET); Jan Löwe; John A.G. Briggs; Group Leader; alumni; Sichen (Susan) Shao; Ramanujan Hegde; ribosome
Photographs: Photo of Tanmay Bharat and Susan ShaoAuthor: Johnson, Amanda
Title: Johannes Kohl Wins 2018 Eppendorf & Science Prize
Reference AAAS 11 October 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni - Awards & Prizes
Subject: Johannes Kohl, a former PhD student from Greg Jefferis’ group in the LMB’s Neurobiology division, is the grand prize winner in The Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology
Keywords: Johannes Kohl; The Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology; prize winner; MPOA neurons; parenting behavior; alumni; “Circuits for care”; Greg Jefferis
Photographs:Author: Kießling, Tilmann
Title: EMBO welcomes twenty-six new Young Investigators
Reference EMBO 20 November 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni
Subject: LMB Alumni Thomas Baden, Yanlan Mao and Peter Sarkies are among 26 life science researchers within their first four years as group leaders to become EMBO Young Investigators.
Keywords: EMBO; Young Investigators; Thomas Baden; Yanlan Mao; Peter Sarkies; Group Leader; award; alumni
Photographs:Author: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Title: Dr. Melina Schuh Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Institute), Göttingen
Reference Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 17 December 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Alumni
Subject: The latest recipients of Germany’s most prestigious research prize, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize have been announced, and includes former LMB group leader, Melina Schuh.
Keywords: Melina Schuh; 2019 Leibniz Prize; meiosis; trisomy 21; reproductive biology; human egg cells; alumni; Group Leader; chromosome segregation
Photographs: Photo of Melina Schuh (Max Planck)Author: Crowther, Tony; Holmes, Ken
Title: John Thomas Finch. 28 February 1930 - 5 December 2017
Reference Royal Society 19 December 2018
Year: 2018
Type: History - Reminiscences
Subject: John’s Royal Society Biographical Memoir, written by Tony Crowther and Ken Holmes.
Keywords: John Finch; X-ray crystallography; chromatin; nucleosomes; tRNA; Hugh Huxley; Aaron Klug; papilloma–polyoma viruses; TMV; Ken Holmes; Rosalind Franklin; powder camera; chromatin; Venki Ramakrishnan; Richard Henderson; A Nobel fellow on every floor; P. J. G. Butler; HIV capsid; Royal Society; memoir
Photographs: John at his desk at Birkbeck in 1958; Geodestix virus models; electron micrographs of viruses taken by John; John with Aaron Klug and model of TMV disk; Finch family pictureAuthor: de Chadarevian, Soraya
Title: John Kendrew and myoglobin: Protein structure determination in the 1950s
Reference Protein Science 6 June 2018
Year: 2018
Type: History - Reminiscences
Subject: Essay reviewing John Kendrew’s pioneering work on the structure of myoglobin for which he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1962
Keywords: John Kendrew; myoglobin; protein structure; X-ray crystallography; EDSAC; Cavendish Laboratory; Max Perutz; hemoglobin; Hugh Huxley; “computer girls”; “sausage model”; “Forest of Rods”; European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL); European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO); Jacques Dubochet;
Photographs: X-ray photo of a myoglobin crystal; Patterson projection of electron density for whale myoglobin printed on EDSAC 1; myoglobin calculations on EDSAC 2 are carried by postdoctoral researchers Bror Strandberg and Richard Dickerson; John Kendrew and “forest of rods”Author: Waterston, Robert H.
Title: In memoriam - John Sulston (1942-2018)
Reference Genome Research 3 June 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Obituary
Subject: Robert H. Waterston looks back on the life and career of John Sulston.
Keywords: John Sulston; Sydney Brenner; C. elegans; Alan Coulson; worm; genome; Sanger Centre; Wellcome Trust; Human Genome Project; Companion of Honour; Knighthood; Nobel Prize; Bob Horvitz; sequencing
Photographs: Photo of John Sulston with microscope (MRC-LMB)Author: BBC News
Title: Sir John Sulston human genome pioneer dies
Reference BBC News 9 March 2018
Year: 2018
Type: Obituary
Subject: Obituary on the BBC News website for John Sulston
Keywords: John Sulston; worm; Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Nobel Prize; Companion; human genome
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