Day: 29 November 2018

Single-Molecule Studies at the ISMB Biophysics Centre

Single-molecule studies can reveal key molecular behaviours that are difficult or impossible to discern at the ensemble level. At the ISMB Biophysics Centre, we are planning trials of new, user-friendly instruments that enable the measurement of protein localisation, conformation, mass and force at the single-molecule level.

If your research would benefit from any of these technologies, please contact us. As well as yielding preliminary data for your research, your samples could help to win funding to bring these instruments to the Biophysics Centre on a permanent basis.

The three instruments that will be trialled are:

  • A Nanoimager: a user-friendly super-resolution microscope (https://oni.bio/) for cellular imaging, particle tracking (for diffusion or active transport) or single-molecule FRET studies.
  • An interferometric scattering mass spectrometer (iSCAMS) (https://www.aragobio.com/), that uses light scattering to determine the macromolecular weight of single particles. This is a powerful way of determining the oligomeric state or composition of protein complexes for structural biology projects, with very limited sample requirements (only tens of nM and microliters required).
  • A combined optical tweezer and single-molecule imaging setup (https://lumicks.com/) for detailed mechanistic studies of forces and kinetics.

For informal enquires, do not hesitate to contact Tina Daviter (t.daviter@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk) or Mark Williams (m.williams@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk). Other ISMB members with experience/interest in these areas who are happy to discuss are: Alan Lowe (a.lowe@ucl.ac.uk), Phil Robinson (p.robinson@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk) and Anthony Roberts (a.roberts@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk 

– Dr Tina Daviter

Posted by ubcg03u in Lab news, News

ISMB’s Dr Alan Cheung and Dr Anthony Roberts selected as EMBO Young Investigators

ISMB members Dr Alan Cheung and Dr Anthony Roberts have received the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Award in recognition of the outstanding quality of their current work and their proposals for future research.
The EMBO Young Investigator Programme identifies recent group leaders with a proven record of scientific excellence.
In the most recent round of applications the programme received 195 eligible applications out of which 26 young researchers were selected to join an active network of 102 current Young Investigators.
Posted by ubcg03u in Achievements, News

Dr Alan Cheung renews Henry Dale fellowship

ISMB member Dr. Alan Cheung has successfully renewed his Sir Henry Dale Fellowship for three years until March 2022.  The Sir Henry Dale Fellowship scheme is a partnership between Wellcome and the Royal Society aimed at recognising and supporting the work of outstanding scientists pursuing independent research in biomedicine in the UK.  The project will investigate the molecular mechanisms of chromatin modifications and their effects on regulating gene expression.

Posted by ubcg03u in News

New EPSRC Impact funding for CCP-SAS

The CCP-SAS project performs molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo atomistic analyses of X-ray and neutron scattering data from Diamond, ISIS, ESRF, ILL and other facilities. This has been running since 2013 and currently has about 600 users from which there are over 50 publications.

The EPSRC grant to Prof Steve Perkins that initiated this project has been extended through the award of a new EPSRC Impact award. This will see the installation of the SASSIE workflow on HPC platforms at UCL, thus making this more widely available at UCL.

A new paper by Osborne et al (2018) illustrates the power of this new approach to clarify the molecular mechanism of complement Factor H.

Osborne AJ, Nan R, Miller A, Bhatt JS, Gor J & Perkins SJ (2018) Two distinct conformations of factor H regulate discrete complement-binding functions in the fluid phase and at cell surfaces. J. Biol. Chem. 293, 17166-17187. Pubmed 30217822

Posted by ubcg03u in Grants awarded, News