MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
One of the world's leading research institutes, our scientists are working to advance understanding of biological processes at the molecular level - providing the knowledge needed to solve key problems in human health.
Ribosomes are cellular molecular machines that link amino acids together in the order specified by messenger RNA (mRNA) to make proteins. Near the end of the mRNA molecule a specific nucleotide sequence, known as a stop codon, signals for protein synthesis to terminate by recruiting release factors that release the newly made protein from the ribosome and recycle the ribosome to start another round of protein synthesis.
However, some mRNA molecules are defective.
The design and synthesis of genomes provides a powerful approach for understanding and engineering biology. The development of methods that can accurately replace the genome in sections, provide feedback on precisely where a given design fails and on how to repair it, and that can be rapidly repeated for whole genome replacement would accelerate our ability to understand and manipulate the information encoded in genomes. Using E.
The ubiquitin system is a complex system in all eukaryotic organisms involved in the regulation of most cellular processes. A huge variety of signals are assembled with ubiquitin molecules onto cellular proteins to mark them for a specific task. Important regulators of the ubiquitin system are deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs), which remove, or cleave, ubiquitin chains in order to reverse these modifications.
The Wnt signaling pathway is an ancient cell communication pathway that has important roles in development and cancer. For the first time, work by Mariann Bienz’s group in the LMB’s PNAC Division has uncovered the molecular mechanism triggering the assembly of the Wnt signalosome, a key component of the Wnt signal transduction pathway that controls normal development and tissue homeostasis in all animals.
The ability of scientists to create changes in gene sequences has improved dramatically in recent years with the emergence of a new method, dubbed ‘CRISPR’. This ‘genome editing’ technology is of great interest due to the wide range of possible applications. CRISPR is already commonly used in fundamental research to study the function of specific genes in either cultured cells or whole animal models of human biology.
Gene fusions, which occur when two previously separate genes become aberrantly fused together, are common cancer-causing mutations. What remain unknown are the molecular functions of most gene fusions, and the proteins that gene fusions can encode (fusion proteins). This lack of functional understanding is a growing problem, since the number of detected gene fusions in cancer continues to rise with advances in modern sequencing technologies.