Scientific Seminars


Below is a list of upcoming seminars at the LMB aimed at a general scientific audience and open to individuals throughout Cambridge. If you are not at the LMB and wish to attend a seminar, please contact the seminar secretary.

The LMB hosts ‘The LMB Seminar Series’, where 1-2 leading scientists per month are invited to speak throughout the year. Four of these lectures are named in honour of LMB Nobel Laureates Max Perutz, Francis Crick, César Milstein and John Kendrew, given by eminent scientists from around the world. The LMB Seminar talks and LMB Named Seminar talks are advertised widely throughout the local area and are open to all.

2019 LMB Seminar Series speakers (click to expand)

  • Bernd Bukau – 4pm, 21st November
  • Wendy Barclay – 11am, 6th December

2020 LMB Seminar Series speakers (click to expand)

  • Milstein 2020 Lecture Elain Fuchs – time tbc, 27th January
  • Jodi Nunnari – time tbc, 7th February
  • Perutz 2019 Lecture – John Diffley – time tbc, 26th February
  • Julie Ahringer – time tbc, 27th March
  • Gerry Rubin – time tbc, 3rd April
  • Perutz 2020 Lecture – David Baker – time tbc, 28th April
  • Peijun Zhang – time tbc, 5th May
  • Nieng Yan – time tbc, 18th May
  • Kendrew 2020 Lecture – Jonathan Weissman – time tbc, 11th June

 

A full list of LMB Named Lectures to date can be found here.

Details of other local seminars can be found here

  • LMB Seminar Series: Folding and assembly of newly synthesized proteins revealed by ribosome profiling

    Speaker: Bernd Bukau, Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University and German Cancer Research Center
    Host: Lori Passmore
    Date: 21/11/2019 at 4:00pm in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

  • Immunology and Medicine seminar series: A carpet of synchronized motile cilia keeps us alive.

    Speaker: Pietro Cicuta, University of Cambridge
    Host: Andres Floto
    Date: 29/11/2019 at 1:00pm in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

  • LMB Seminar Series: Host factors that shape influenza evolution

    Speaker: Wendy Barclay, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London
    Host: John O’Neill
    Date: 06/12/2019 at 11:00am in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • Radiation Damage and Ice Formation in Biomolecular Structure Determination Using X-rays and Electrons

    Speaker: Professor Robert Thorne, Robert Thorne, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
    Host: Chris Russo
    Date: 10/12/2019 at 11:30am in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Radiation damage and ice formation are major obstacles to probing biomolecular structure and function using X-rays and electrons. Cooling to cryogenic temperatures suppresses diffusion and reduces radiation damage per unit dose, increasing both the amount and resolution of structural data that may be obtained. However, cooling perturbs biomolecular samples and the available structural information, especially when crystalline ice forms. The most extensive studies of radiation damage have been performed using X-ray crystallography. Spatially nonuniform sample irradiation, due to nonuniform incident beam intensity and to sample rotation, leads to complex evolution of diffracted intensity — and of the damaged states contributing to that intensity — with dose. Accounting for these effects, our analysis of experimental data yields a local relation between the q-dependent diffracted intensity and dose of the form , where with . A simple model for radiation damage as a sequence of random, local electron density "blurs" predicts this exponential variation with dose and a decay exponent   2. These results have implications for the "dose limit" in diffraction and imaging, and for how measured diffraction intensities are corrected for radiation damage to obtain structure factor estimates. We have also explored ice formation in bulk aqueous solutions and within protein crystals. In bulk solutions and in the cooling rate regime relevant in cryo-electron microscopy and cryo- (electron and X-ray) crystallography, ice formation is nucleation dominated, and a simple statistical mechanical model accounts for the exponential reduction of critical cooling rates to achieve vitrification with increasing cryoprotectant concentration. In protein crystals, ice nucleation within internal solvent is dramatically suppressed by nanoconfinement. This allows study of protein structure and dynamics in the presence of liquid, cryoprotectant-free internal solvent at temperatures down to ~200 K. In the absence of ice formation, protein crystal order is degraded during cooling by solvent flows associated with differential contraction of solvent cavities and internal solvent. Solvent within the first two hydration layers never crystallizes, and crystallization of the remaining internal solvent generates stacking disordered ice.Finally, application of ideas and methods from X-ray cryo-crystallography to important challenges in cryo-electron microscopy will be discussed.

  • Milstein LMB Seminar: Title tbc

    Speaker: Elain Fuchs, Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
    Host: Madeline Lancaster
    Date: 27/01/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • Cambridge 3Rs Seminar Series

    Speaker: TBC
    Host:
    Date: 06/02/2020 at 4:00pm in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

  • LMB Seminar Series: Title tbc

    Speaker: Jodi Nunnari, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Sciences
    Host: Wanda Kukulski
    Date: 10/02/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • Perutz LMB Seminar: Title tbc

    Speaker: John Diffley, Associate Research Director, the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
    Host: Joe Yeeles
    Date: 26/02/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • LMB Seminar Series: Title tbc

    Speaker: Julie Ahringer, PhD FMedSci, Director, Wellcome Senior Research Fellow, Professor of Genetics and Genomics, Member of the Department of Genetics
    Host: Bill Schafer
    Date: 27/03/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • LMB Seminar Series: Title tbc

    Speaker: Gerry Rubin, Vice President, HHMI, and Executive Director, Janelia Research Campus.
    Host: Jan Löwe
    Date: 03/04/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • Perutz LMB Seminar: Title tbc

    Speaker: David Baker,
    Host: Manu Derivery
    Date: 28/04/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • LMB Seminar Series: Title tbc

    Speaker: Peijun Zhang, Director of the electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC)
    Host: Andrew Carter
    Date: 05/05/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • LMB Seminar Series: Title tbc

    Speaker: Nieng Yan, Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
    Host: Andrew Carter
    Date: 18/05/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow

  • Kendrew LMB Seminar: Title tbc

    Speaker: Jonathan Weissman,Professor Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSF
    Host: Liz Miller
    Date: 11/06/2020 in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre, LMB.

    Further information

    Abstract to follow