LMB In The News

“From helping to decipher the genetic code to establishing the worm C. elegans as a model organism, and from directing the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge to advising research institutes around the world, Nobel Prize winner Sydney Brenner has had a long and impressive career. Few scientists have achieved as much as Brenner in both research and administration of science, and he has done so while enjoying a well-deserved reputation for iconoclasm and irreverent wit. The new book Sydney Brenner: A Biography, written by Errol C. Friedberg and published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, documents Brenner’s game-changing discoveries in the field of molecular biology, all brightened by his entertaining personality.” More…

“The hot spot for life on early Earth may have been a very cold place. Tiny pockets and channels that form inside ice can contain and protect replicating molecules, researchers report September 21 in Nature Communications. The paper suggests that life could have sprung from icy slush covering a freshwater lake, rather than a broiling deep-sea hydrothermal vent or the “warm little pond” proposed by Charles Darwin. And perhaps the frigid, icy surfaces of other planets are not as barren as they appear, proposes the research team from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.” More…

“Cracks in ice could have served as a safe environment — much like a cell — for the first life on Earth to replicate and evolve. A new study adds plausibility to the ‘RNA World’ hypothesis that argues life began with a single stranded molecule capable of self-replication. “I always thought that the idea of an RNA world was exciting, but that RNA was a perverse choice of primordial material because it was hard to imagine chemical conditions under which they could survive on the early earth,” said biologist Philipp Holliger of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom, who led a study in Nature Communications Sept. 21.” More…

“The best career advice Jason Chin ever received came from an organic chemistry professor, biological chemist John Sutherland, who joined Chin recently as a colleague at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, U.K. Chin, who was studying for a B.A. in chemistry at the University of Oxford, was fascinated with the idea that a set of principles could explain how the world is built up from its constituent elements.” More…

“Work on the RMJM designed new building for the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge has reached the first major stage of completion with its topping out on Friday 10 September… The new 30,000 m2 LMB building, being built by BAM Construction Ltd with RMJM working in partnership with BAM design practice, will cost around £200 million and provide space and facilities for more than 400 researchers. The laboratory has approximately twice the size of the current building. The design of the new LMB is reminiscent of paired chromosomes, with two long laboratory wings joined by a spacious atrium, encouraging interaction and easy navigation and containing seminar rooms and a lecture theatre.” This article is no longer available from the source website: Architect News 10 September 2010

“First Alzheimer’s patient treated with BAN2401, a novel antibody targeting the neurotoxin believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease… Antibody humanization, also known as CDR-grafting (CDR is a synonym for complementarity determining region) was first invented at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the UK by Dr. Sir Greg Winter and patented by the MRC in the late 1980’s.” More…