News & Events

LMB Alumni News

From its earliest days the LMB has attracted and trained first class scientists from around the world – creating a diverse community for the exchange of ideas and technical innovation. The LMB provides excellent opportunities for early career and established researchers – people with the potential to lead their field. A high percentage of LMB students and post-docs stay in research or science related fields after they leave the LMB. The LMB supports the wider scientific community by supplying highly trained scientific leaders. They leave the LMB to develop and support molecular biology both in the UK and throughout the world.

Kim Nasmyth awarded 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

LMB 1981-1987, scientific staff & group leader, Cell Biology

Professor Kim Nasmyth has been awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, which recognises transformative advances towards understanding living systems and extending human life. Kim has made hugely valuable contributions to the life sciences through his elucidation of the sophisticated mechanism that mediates the perilous separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division and thereby prevents genetic diseases such as cancer. More...

Ashok Venkitaraman Winner of 2017 Basser Global Prize

Ashok Venkitaraman, LMB 1988-1998, Postdoctoral Fellow, Scientific Staff & Group Leader, PNAC

The Basser Center for BRCA at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Centre has announced that Ashok Venkitaraman is the recipient of its fifth annual Basser Global Prize for helping explain how individuals with inherited BRCA2 mutations are predisposed to cancer. More…

Sydney Brenner: A Revolutionary Biologist

Sydney Brenner, LMB 1957-1989, Senior Staff & Director, Cell Biology & Structural Studies

Sydney Brenner, one of the 20^th Century’s greatest biologists and joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, talks to biologist and historian Matthew Cobb about his route into science, his 20 year-long collaboration with DNA pioneer Francis Crick and the foundation stones he laid for the new science of molecular biology and genetics. More…

Melina Schuh – exploring why older women find it harder to fall pregnant

Melina Schuh, LMB 2008-2012, Scientific Staff & Group Leader, Cell Biology

Dr Melina Schuh’s new laboratory at Bourn Hall Clinic is carrying out ground-breaking research into human eggs. It is seeking to uncover the secrets of why older women find it harder to fall pregnant – and why they are more likely to have children with chromosomal abnormalities. More…

Xiaochen Bai – first atomic structure from UTSW’s Cryo-EM facility

Xiaochen Bai, LMB 2012-2017, Scientific Staff, Structural Studies

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have published a 3-D atomic structure of the ion channel found in mammals that is implicated in a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease in humans. The work marks the first such structure determined using the university’s $17 million cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) facility that opened last year. Xiaochen Bai, an Assistant Professor of Biophysics and Cell Biology and the study’s second corresponding author, spent five years training at LMB. More…

Cell lineage tracing – from pioneer John Sulston, to today’s ground-breaking research

John Sulston, LMB 1969-1992, Scientific Staff & Group Leader, Cell Biology

John Sulston, Nobel prize winner in 2002, determined the cell lineage of the nematode worm C. elegans. Using new cutting-edge technologies, researchers across the world are now aiming to trace cell lineages in a variety of other organisms. More…

Genome pioneer John Sulston enters elite club

John Sulston, LMB 1969-1992, Scientific Staff & Group Leader, Cell Biology

British genome pioneer Sir John Sulston has been elevated to the Companion of Honour in the Queen’s birthday list. Only 65 people, including the sovereign herself, can hold the distinction at any one time. More…

Maria Leptin welcomed as Leopoldina member

Maria Leptin, LMB 1984-1988, Postdoctoral Visitor & Scientific Staff, Cell Biology

The German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, has welcomed EMBO Director Maria Leptin as one of its members. Election to the Leopoldina membership is the highest academic honour awarded by an institution in Germany and it is bestowed on scientists who are experts in their fields. More…

Wojciech Galej receives Early Career Research Award from the Biochemical Society

Wojciech Galej, LMB 2009-2016, PhD student & Scientific Staff, Structural Studies

Wojciech Galej has been awarded the 2018 Early Career Research Award for Molecular Structure and Function by the Biochemical Society. Wojciech has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of the molecular mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing through his structural analysis of the spliceosome and its components using X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy. More…

LMB alumnus, Jonathan Hodgkin, wins Novitski Prize

Jonathan Hodgkin, LMB 1971-1974 & 1976-2000, PhD student & Group Leader, Cell Biology

Professor Jonathan Hodgkin has been awarded the prestigious Edward Novitski prize for 2017 by the Genetics Society of America, in recognition of his “extraordinary creativity and intellectual ingenuity in solving significant problems in genetics research”. During his time at the LMB, Jonathan undertook pioneering work in the field of C. elegans genetics. More…