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.
Over 30 LMB researchers have taken part in a range of activities as part of LifeLab 2018 and Big Biology Day, bringing their research to public spaces in Peterborough and Cambridge in the form of hands-on activities and discussions.
LifeLab is a European Commission-funded programme of events taking place as part of European Researchers’ Night and was one of 55 similar projects happening around Europe.
At the end of a highly stimulating LMB Lab Symposium, Jan Löwe, LMB Director and Chair of the Max Perutz Fund (UK charity 1129597), was delighted to announce the winners of the Max Perutz Student Prize and the newly awarded Brenner Postdoc Prize.
The Max Perutz Student Prize has been awarded annually since 1984 for outstanding PhD work performed at the LMB.
Gero Miesenböck will give the 2018 Francis Crick Lecture on Wednesday 24th October 2018 at 11.00am in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre at the LMB. The lecture, entitled “Light Sleep” is open to anyone in the local area who is interested in attending.
Gero is Waynflete Professor of Physiology and founding Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at the University of Oxford.
Tom Steitz, Nobel Laureate, known for his ground-breaking work on the structural basis of the central dogma including the ribosome, died on Tuesday 9th October, at the age of 78. Tom was Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, USA. He and his wife Joan were postdoctoral scientists at the LMB for 3 years from 1967 to 1970. They remained good friends of the LMB all their lives.
Greg Winter from the LMB’s Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry (PNAC) Division has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Greg shares half of this year’s prize with George P. Smith, with the other half being awarded to Frances H. Arnold, for developing a method known as phage display and using it for the directed evolution of antibodies, with the aim of producing new pharmaceuticals.
A group of 17 children joined postdocs from the LMB and the Department of Biochemistry to review science books, learn more about what it’s really like to be a scientist and try hands-on experiments at the Eddington Postdoc centre in west Cambridge.