Image365

It’s not every day an LMB Group Leader has a significant birthday, so John O’Neill’s group in Cell Biology surprised him with a molecularly crowded Happy Birthday on day 154 of #LMB365.

Julian Gough uses theoretical and computational approaches to harness the power of data generated by experimental methods to advance scientific knowledge in areas including regenerative medicine and personal genomics. The transcriptome is the set of all RNA molecules in a specified cell population. This image for day 153 of #LMB365 shows a map derived from real human cellular transcriptome data. Hundreds of cell types are plotted on the landscape and a few of them highlighted with labels.

The LMB supports long-term research projects and on this day in 1994 Andrew McKenzie started his group working on the immune system. On day 152 of #LMB365 Andrew is pictured giving a lecture to LMB support staff about the work that led to the identification of a new immune cell type that contributes to the start of allergic asthma. This has provided a critical first step in developing new treatments.

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus continues to expand, with the nearby Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre due to open shortly and AstraZeneca continuing their building project. This photo for day 151 of #LMB365 was taken while LMB staff watched the careful construction of new portacabins on the AstraZeneca site.

Day 150 of #LMB365 shows the transparent multicellular organism C. elegans, which has fewer than 1,000 cells, and is therefore an ideal model organism for studying various biological processes. Here the entire intestine of two worms is tagged using a green fluorescent protein (GFP), while rows of oval-shaped eggs can be seen in grey.

Imagining the Brain was an outreach project conceived by Yvonne Vallis and Harvey McMahon in the Neurobiology Division to engage school pupils to use art to communicate science. They gave talks on science topics and held an annual exhibition, open to the public, of the work the students produced. Particularly talented students were offered a residency to create artwork in the LMB. Inspired by the scientific and artistic relationship between form and function, as part of Edward Parkhouse’s residency work in 2011 he created a piece of artwork that told the story of the LMB and looked forward to the move to the new building. The image for day 149 of #LMB365 is the result. This is his commentary on the project: “I wanted to create a piece of furniture that was inspired by the history of the LMB. I based the piece on a tree stump to represent the processes of life; this opens into the double helix structure of DNA. The supporting metal helices in the middle of the stem have some parts where the nucleotide bases are left out, representing what science has yet to discover. The metalwork then opens out into the form of a human brain in cross-section, supporting the brain-shaped glass table-top. Creating this piece was one of the most challenging and enjoyable things I have ever done. It was inspirational to work with the scientists at the LMB and I hope that they enjoy this vision of the past and future of this amazing laboratory.”