Image365

The small soil worm C. elegans is used by Mario de Bono’s group in the Cell Biology Division to study proteins that control behaviour. To extract these proteins, worms are frozen into balls by dropping them into liquid nitrogen and then ground into a fine powder. Day 118 of #LMB365 is a photo of some frozen “worm balls” containing over 1 million frozen worms.

Most steps of X-ray crystallography are enabled with safe and straightforward automated protocols. This is particularly true for screening protein crystallisation conditions. On day 117 of #LMB365 a young visitor (Julia, aged 6) was desperate to try our equipment, although she expected to reveal the mythical powers of the crystals rather than solving their structure.

This image for day 116 of #LMB365 is a dish of negatively stained grids, discarded after use in the general-use Spirit, which is a 120 kV transmission electron microscope (TEM). Samples are applied to the grid, then surrounded by heavy metal stain that blocks the electrons, thereby enhancing contrast.

On this day in 1953 the landmark paper proposing the structure of DNA was published in the journal Nature. ‘We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.’ Day 115 of #LMB365 shows a reproduction of the original DNA model, which can be seen in the foyer of the LMB building

Day 114 of #LMB365. Ferris Beuller would never go to the lab on such a spectacular spring day! But if you don’t have access to a 1961 Ferrari GT, you might as well be in the LMB doing experiments.

The external mounds around the LMB were originally planted with 20 different wild flora species to produce a grassland meadow mixture. The original planting mixture has now been taken over by species from the surrounding area and the variety of plants is changing, including these lovely cowslips in the LMB’s drainage ditches for day 113 of #LMB365