LMB 365 – Day 151

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.”

On this day in 1962, HM The Queen officially opened the first LMB building. For day 148 of #LMB365, The Queen is seen arriving at the entrance to the LMB. Max Perutz, in the foreground, greets The Queen, while LMB staff inside the building can be seen through the window

Day 147 of #LMB365 shows some aluminium and copper swarf created by the Technical Instrumentation Workshop. Swarf is the technical term for the metal removed during the machining process and is generally small chips or spirals that can be extremely sharp. The swarf is kept separate (copper, brass, aluminium, stainless steel etc) making it easier to recycle.

Day 146 of #LMB365 is a photo taken in the middle of the night while using one of the £4million Titan Krios microscopes to determine the structure of protein complexes. Often the days get fairly long, including setting the microscopes up, but the rewards can be amazing. See more about the use of cryo-EM on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/BtuAz12zXBs