The biochemist, Fred Sanger, a former Head of the LMB’s PNAC Division, has died aged 95. He had the rare distinction of winning the Nobel Prize twice, in 1958 and 1960. More…
Frederick Sanger: Nobel prizewinning biochemist whose insulin and DNA work transformed genetics
Cambridge blockbusters and 100 Years of the MRC
Exactly one hundred years ago, the UK government of the day established an organisation to take care of medical research on behalf of the 1911 National Insurance Act. This article is no longer available from the source website: Cabume 13 November 2013
Did life have very cold beginnings?
An idea that combines two likely ingredients of genesis has been put forward by Philip Holliger from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. One ingredient is the idea that there was an ‘RNA world’ before the current DNA world. The other comes from the idea that a key factor in evolution was the emergence of the cell membrane. More…
Botox jab could ease arthritis and cancer without side effects
Sheffield University researcher Professor Bazbek Davletov took the pain-relieving part of Botox and ‘stapled’ it to a friendly part of a similar poison produced by the tetanus bug. The tetanus toxin ferries the pain reliever to the spinal cord, where it stops pain signals being sent to the brain. Professor Davletov designed the drug while working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. More…
Smart neurons: single dendrites can perform computations
A study, published in the journal Nature and carried out by researchers based at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at UCL, LMB’s Tiago Branco and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, succeeded in making incredibly challenging electrical and optical recordings directly from the tiny dendrites of neurons in the intact brain while the brain was processing visual information. More…
Michael Neuberger 1953 – 2013
Professor Michael Neuberger, who has died aged 59, was a brilliant biochemist and immunologist whose work helped to launch a revolution in biomedical research.
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