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.
Thomas Arthur Steitz. 23 August 1940 – 9 October 2018
LMB 1967-1970, Postdoctoral Scientist, Structural Studies
Thomas Steitz was among the foremost of the generation that was responsible for an explosion in our understanding of the structure and function of biological macromolecules. His research career was one of sustained excellence over six decades, and spanned the range from determining the structures of important metabolic enzymes to understanding the structural basis of how genetic information residing in our DNA is used to make the proteins they encode. This latter effort culminated in the structure of the ribosome, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009. Thomas’ Royal Society Biographical Memoir, written by Venki Ramakrishnan and Richard Henderson, has recently been published. More …
Michael Webster joins the John Innes Centre as a Group Leader
LMB 2013-2018, PhD student, scientific staff, and post-doctoral scientist, Structural Studies.
Michael Webster shares insights into his research, scientific interests and career so far as he joins the John Innes Centre as a Group Leader. Michael completed his PhD and first postdoc in Lori Passmore’s group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division. He was drawn to the LMB for its historical importance in the determination of biomolecular structures and genetic information. He worked on solving molecular structures using cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) during the ‘resolution revolution’. His work will now focus on studying the molecular machinery behind photosynthetic gene expression. More…
Donald Caspar 1927 – 2021
LMB: 1955-1956, Postdoctoral Fellow; 1957-1961 Scientific Visitor; 1962-1975 (intermittently) Scientific Worker, Structural Studies
Don Caspar, LMB alumnus, has died at the age of 94. Don first came to the MRC Unit for the Study of the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems (now the LMB) as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 1955. He would become a frequent scientific worker at the Lab over the next 20 years and remained a friend and scientific colleague to many. It was Francis Crick who first recruited Don, to record some single crystal virus diffraction patterns, which he had asserted could test his theory with Jim Watson that “spherical” viruses should have cubic symmetry (tetrahedral, octahedral or icosahedral). Don recognised non-crystallographic icosahedral symmetry axes in his precession photographs of Bushy Stunt Virus crystal from their “spikes of high intensity”. Exploring implications of the icosahedral virus symmetry he had discovered kept him returning to the LMB for the next 20 years; from 1965-1975 he had a small desk at the back of Aaron Klug’s office for his summer visits, nominally to work on a description of his Buckminster Fuller-inspired “tensegrity” models, which provided a basis for Don and Aaron’s 1962 quasi-equivalence theory of virus construction. More…
Christian Münch and Clemens Plaschka join EMBO Young Investigator Network
C. Münch: LMB 2008-2012, PhD Student, Neurobiology
C. Plaschka: LMB 2016-2018, post-doctoral visitor and researcher, Structural Studies
Two LMB alumni, Christian Münch and Clemens Plaschka, are among twenty-six life scientists to be welcomed into EMBO’s Young Investigator Network. They join a cohort of 130 current and 368 former members with access to networking opportunities and funding. More…
Kenneth Holmes 1934 – 2021
LMB 1961-1968, Scientific Staff, Structural Studies
Ken Holmes, LMB alumnus and friend, has died at the age of 86. He was a PhD student with Rosalind Franklin at Birkbeck College, London, and moved to the LMB alongside Aaron Klug in 1961. He continued the work of Rosalind and Aaron on the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and his work on insect flight muscle paralleled the work of Hugh Huxley studying the structure and function of vertebrate muscle. Ken was the first to find the crucial evidence that the myosin crossbridges in the thick filaments in muscle moved depending on the presence or absence of ATP. His work on muscle and TMV continued when he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in 1968, becoming Director of the Department of Biophysics in 1973. He remained in contact with many colleagues at the LMB, participating in events and inspiring conversations. In 2017, he published his biography of Aaron Klug – A Long Way from Durban – which was celebrated with a book launch at the LMB. More
The life and work of Robert C. Sheppard – pioneer of peptide synthesis
LMB 1971-1993, Group Leader and Head of Sub-Division of Peptide Chemistry,
John Wade from The University of Melbourne and John Jones from Balliol College, University of Oxford have partnered to essay the life and work of Robert Charles Sheppard. Bob was invited to join the LMB to head its Peptide Chemistry research group in 1971. He was an essential part of the PNAC division during his outstanding career. He made a hugely significant and fundamental contribution to the field of peptide synthesis research. Bob was a true pioneer of solid-phase protein synthesis (SPPS) and many of the methods he helped develop are still widely used today across industry and academia. More…