LMB 365 – Day 84

The LMB’s new sub-cellular light sheet microscope allows for high speed 3D imaging of cells and small organisms with minimal damage and loss of fluorescent glow. For day 84 of #LMB365 a green laser is focussed to form a thin light sheet of illumination in the centre of the photo. A small silver spoon holds the sample and moves it through the sheet at high speed. Thanks to the gentleness of this technique, scientists can study a range of cells and small organisms for hundreds of time points before the signal is lost.

LMB Nobel Laureate John Kendrew was born on this day in Oxford in 1917. In 1946 he became Max Perutz’s first research student, and helped found the MRC Unit a year later. In 1962 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his studies of the structures of globular proteins. He died in Cambridge on 23 August 1997. For day 83 of #LMB365, this photo from the late 1950s shows John lecturing next to his large ‘sausage’ model of myoglobin, the protein that stores oxygen in muscles

Using cryo-EM, researchers in the groups of Sjors Scheres and Michel Goedert determined the atomic structure of tau filaments that were extracted from the brain of an individual with Alzheimer’s disease. The resulting structure is shown on day 82 of #LMB365. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of tau aggregation in neurodegenerative disease may be important in finding a cure.

This image for day 81 of #LMB365 is from Yara Sanchez-Corrales in Katja Röper’s group in the Cell Biology Division. It is of a Drosophila melanogaster embryo showing apical membrane in the whole embryo (green). The 3D cell shape of some cells can be appreciated using a cytoplasm marker (magenta). For more information about 3D shape, check their recent paper @eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/35717