{"id":5,"date":"2019-07-26T12:30:18","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T11:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:39:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:39:04","slug":"what-we-do","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/what-we-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What we do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Circadian biology<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Circadian (approximately daily) rhythms are cell-autonomous oscillations that permeate every level of biology, and thereby impact upon many aspects of health and disease. In humans for example, our sleep\/wake cycle has a clear circadian rhythm, as do numerous aspects of physiology and metabolism. Circadian disruption, as occurs during shift work, has been strongly linked with conditions such metabolic syndrome, heart disease and various cancers. The molecular basis of cellular timekeeping remains an elusive yet critical objective for biomedical research.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/DailyActivityAnimation2-ezgif.com-video-to-gif-converter.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-448\" style=\"width:731px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"color: #3f3f3f\">Our research programme follows two strands. First, we seek to understand the key inputs and outputs that connect daily cellular timekeeping with human physiology. Second, we want to determine the underlying mechanism of cell-autonomous timekeeping, with the aim of identifying the post-translational \u201cancestral\u201d clock that we hypothesise underpins the diverse array of transcription-based circadian rhythms found in varied organisms.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To achieve these goals we employ a wide range of molecular biology, proteomic, metabolomic and biochemical techniques, supported by real-time fluorescent and bioluminescent reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/picture1_orig.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"835\" height=\"218\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/picture1_orig.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/picture1_orig.png 835w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/picture1_orig-300x78.png 300w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/picture1_orig-768x201.png 768w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/picture1_orig-600x157.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 835px) 100vw, 835px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Circadian rhythms in cellular function of diverse eukaryotes are synchronised by external timing cues and facilitated by daily cycles in the activity of transcription factors encoded by clock genes, such as Period1, 2 &amp; 3 in mammals. Clock proteins auto-repress via transcription-translation feedback loops (TTFL), whereas their translation, activity and stability are regulated post-translationally by enzymes such as casein kinase 1 (CK1). While TTFL components do not share homology between kingdoms, many post-translational clock components are evolutionarily conserved, suggesting they form the basis of an ancestral daily clock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Circadian biology Circadian (approximately daily) rhythms are cell-autonomous oscillations that permeate every level of biology, and thereby impact upon many aspects of health and disease. In humans for example, our sleep\/wake cycle has a clear circadian rhythm, as do numerous aspects of physiology and metabolism. Circadian disruption, as occurs during shift work, has been strongly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-5","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":619,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/oneill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}