About us

The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology (ACSMB) is an interdisciplinary research centre of the University of Leeds.

ACSMB brings together over fifty academic staff from four faculties - from biological sciences, physical sciences (chemistry and physics), engineering and medicine - who share the common goal of understanding life in atomic detail.

ACSMB is a major Centre for research and training in structural molecular biology in its broadest sense, and is host to a Wellcome Trust-funded 4-year PhD programme and a BBSRC-funded PhD programme. The Centre has outstanding research infrastructure including all of the major techniques for structural molecular biology: X-ray diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. The Centre's expertise in structural biology is complemented by expertise in chemical biology, molecular biophysics and bionanoscience. Together these approaches are combined with analyses of biological function with the ultimate aim of understanding the molecular basis of biological mechanisms in living cells. Our members address major questions associated with biological mechanisms in areas as diverse as membrane proteins; protein folding and assembly; viruses; and motor proteins.