Insight on Research

New research by John O’Neill, in the LMB’s Cell Biology Division, and Kenneth Wright, at the University of Colorado, has revealed the mechanism by which caffeine affects the human body clock. The body’s internal clock affects many aspects of human health and disease, such as when we feel sleepy, how we metabolise food, and even […]

The atomic structure of the 170 kDa membrane protein gamma-secretase, a membrane protein complex that has an important role in Alzheimer’s disease, has been solved using single-particle electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) by Sjors Scheres’ group in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division. This demonstrates for the first time that high-resolution reconstruction of such small molecules can be […]

New research from the LMB’s Cell Biology and Structural Studies Divisions has answered a long-standing problem in molecular biology: how does the ribosome decode the signals to stop protein synthesis? In cells, all proteins are produced by ribosomes that ‘read’ messenger RNA (mRNA) one codon, or three nucleotides, at a time. Protein translation terminates when […]

In a long-standing collaborative effort, groups at MRC Harwell, the LMB, and the University of Oxford have discovered a new genetic mechanism in the circadian body clock that could have important implications for research in mental health and psychiatric disease. Biological clocks run in all our cells, controlling the timing of a number of crucial […]

Early-onset Parkinson’s disease arises when the Parkin protein, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, cannot be activated and remains in a permanently ‘off’ state in neurons. Despite the importance of Parkin activation, until recently no-one has understood how the protein could be switched on. David Komander’s group, in the LMB’s Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry Division, has […]

During fertilisation, an egg and a sperm fuse to form a new embryo. To create the egg, a precursor cell called an oocyte undergoes meiosis: a specialised form of cell division in which half the chromosomes are separated away leaving exactly the right number of chromosomes in the egg. Meiosis in human oocytes is highly […]