Jason Chin’s group in the LMB’s PNAC Division have, for the first time, synthesised the entire genome of a commonly used model organism, the bacterium E. coli. There has only been one previous example of synthesis of an entire genome: for the Mycoplasma bacterial genome, which consists of approximately 1 million bases. Over the last 5 […]
Creating an entire bacterial genome with a compressed genetic code
LMB 365 – Day 136
Day 136 of #LMB365 shows Ananth Kumar from Lori Passmore’s Group in Structural Studies submitting his PhD thesis titled “Architecture of eukaryotic mRNA 3′ end processing machinery and insights into the mechanism of polyadenylation” at the new “red” door with his colleagues James Stowell and Ana Casañal. Now just the small matter of the viva to come…
Michael Rossmann 1930 – 2019
Michael Rossmann, Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue University and former scientific staff at the LMB, where he worked with Max Perutz on the structure of haemoglobin, has died on 14th May 2019 at the age of 88. Michael was a very gifted crystallographer whose main strength was in mathematics and computer programming. At […]
LMB 365 – Day 135
On day 135 of #LMB365 we have a 1970s drawing showing the hybrid atomic orbitals of the lysozyme system, to highlight Michael Levitt’s landmark paper on the theoretical studies of enzymic reactions, published on this day in 1976. This paper reported the first computerised model of an enzymatic reaction, a development that allowed any kind of chemical reaction to be simulated involving any kind of molecule, irrespective of size. For this work Michael shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Reference: A. Warshel & M Levitt, Theoretical studies of enzymic reactions, Journal of Molecular Biology 103: 227-249.
LMB 365 – Day 134
All neat and tidy on day 134 of #LMB365. They look like they could be scientific samples waiting to be used, but these are storage tubes for different size drill bits, all carefully arranged in the LMB’s Technical Instrumentation Workshop. There are thousands of different sizes – imperial, metric, number and letter and the workshop get through a huge amount of drill bits, hence the well organised and labelled spares. Storing the drill bits in tubes was devised way back in the 1970s and each successive Head of the Workshop has inherited and carried on with the tradition.
LMB 365 – Day 133
Whilst the sun sets in the background of this photo by Shahana Ahmed, the conscientious LMB researchers continue in their pursuit of discovery on day 133 of #LMB365. Every sunset brings the promise of a new day, new opportunities and even more experiments!