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.
New research from Philipp Holliger’s group in the LMB’s PNAC Division demonstrates the power RNA could have wielded to enable the first forms of life on Earth to reproduce and thrive.
At its most basic level, all life can be viewed as a mechanism for self-replication: organisms reproduce by making new copies of themselves and of the genetic information that defines them.
Work led by Sergey Nejentsev and Alison Condliffe from the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Roger Williams’ group in the LMB’s PNAC Division, the Babraham Institute has discovered a rare genetic disease which predisposes patients to severe respiratory infections and lung damage.
Work carried out by Michael Hastings’ group in the LMB Neurobiology’s Division, together with collaborators at Leicester, Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities has combined expertise in molecular genetics and marine biology to address a long-standing question about tidal behaviour in marine organisms. They were interested in whether these animals are driven by a dedicated internal tidal clock or are controlled by a system based on a modified 24-hour circadian clock.
Work carried out by Melina Schuh’s group in the LMB’s Cell Biology Division has provided new insights into how the spindle is asymmetrically positioned in oocytes, which is a vital step in the development of a fertilizable egg in mammals.
The oocyte is stored in the ovary in meiotic arrest until ovulation. At ovulation, the primary oocyte completes meiosis I and discards half of its chromosomes in a small cell termed the polar body.
While fully sequenced genomes are available for many important experimental organisms, a major challenge has been to identify the functions of the genes identified. A method for phenotyping that is both high-throughput, so all an organism’s genes can be phenotyped, and high-content, so inferences about gene function can be made with precision, has been required.
The nematode worm, C. elegans, is a major experimental model for neuroscience, as well as aging and development.
New research from Leon Lagnado’s group in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division shows how food-related smells ‘re-tune’ zebrafish vision by making the retina more sensitive to moving objects, such as the prey that zebrafish eat.
The way the brain processes information from one sense depends on the activity of other senses. For instance, we all know that to listen closely to some music, it often helps to shut one’s eyes.