2 August 2022
Understanding the structural biology underpinning disease can be crucial for informing drug or vaccine design. For example, structural biology can help researchers understand the mechanism that allows a viral spike protein to bind receptors in our cells. However, structural biology research in Africa is suffering from a lack of resources and, consequently, from the loss of skilled researchers who are moving to pursue a career in this field overseas. To address this, BioStruct-Africa ran a workshop that brought the African structural biology community together by providing training and networking opportunities. BioStruct-Africa was awarded one of our Scientific Meeting Grants to support the event.
6 July 2022
Emily Simmons, our first intern able to work in the office since the start of the pandemic, recounts her experience.
24 May 2022
Improving the sustainability of research labs and scientific conferences is crucial given the threat of climate change, and the recent advent of remote meetings has helped bring this issue to the forefront. In response to this, we launched our Sustainable Conferencing Initiative in October 2020 to offer guidance and support on the sustainability of events. Viktoria Lamprinaki, our Sustainability Officer, recently attended two meetings to discuss this initiative and to meet with others working in the field of sustainability.
25 April 2022
We were delighted to attend the first in-person BSCB-BSDB Joint Spring Meeting since the start of the pandemic. In a triumphant return, the conference recorded its highest ever number of attendees, with around 500 delegates making the trip to the University of Warwick in the first week of April. There was also a bumper crop of posters, and the organisers reported that they had received a total of 290 submissions.
11 April 2022
Microtubules are hollow rods that form an important part of the cell cytoskeleton. They are built from polymers of tubulin, a protein that can be modified by the removal (or later re-addition) of an amino acid called tyrosine. Tyrosine modification can affect how the microtubules interact with kinesins, which walk along the microtubules and carry cargo from one part of the cell to another. Proper kinesin function is particularly important in neurons, since these cells can reach remarkable lengths and so transporting cargo from one end to another is a significant undertaking.
29 July 2022
Holly Shiels is based at the University of Manchester, UK, where her lab investigates the interplay between environment and cardiac physiology. They are currently working on the tolerance of fishes to hypoxia and to changes in temperature, as well as the effects of microplastics and crude oil on cardiac health. This latter research area also relates to broader concerns about air pollution, since crude oil contains polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are the same molecules that form a ‘corona’ around particulate matter in the air we breathe.
25 May 2022
Beaks are an important asset for birds that live in environments with limited freshwater. This is because their bills are thought to offer a route for non-evaporative heat loss, helping the birds to regulate their body temperatures without losing water. Mackenzie Roeder, a PhD student from the University of Maine, used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Experimental Biology to support her quantification of this effect in the field.
6 May 2022
Two key aspects of scientific training are learning to think critically about the literature and developing a good writing style. Professor Guy Caldwell is a researcher at the University of Alabama who leverages articles from our Open Access journal Disease Models & Mechanisms for this purpose.
22 April 2022
The first of our 2022 Workshops took place in April, with a focus on cell size and growth. Organised by postdoctoral researchers Clotilde Cadart and Matthew Swaffer, this Workshop brought together researchers working with a broad range of systems, including yeast, tadpoles and even fossilised plants.
8 April 2022
Ageing is associated with the accumulation of epigenetic changes to a cell’s DNA. Attempts to slow or even reverse ageing understandably attract a lot of attention, and one novel strategy of particular interest is attempting to ‘rejuvenate’ existing cells. With the help of a Travelling Fellowship, PhD student Priscila Chiavellini was able to visit Stanford University to investigate this approach.
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