Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryL
Contact Information A directory of all workers within the Centre is available General enquiries should be addressed to the Centre's administrator:Donna FletcherAstbury Centre for Structural Molecular
Astbury Centre Directory NameTelemailarea of research Abidi, Dr Fatima0113 343 4700bmsfab@leeds.ac.ukMembrane proteins Adams, Dr Chris0113 343 7279 & 7272c.j.adams@leeds.ac.uk Regulatory complexes Ain
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
Applicants for WT scheme Select the year for which you wish to view the applications. Access to view the details of applicants for the Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD programme is limited to approved superv
Advertise a job on Astbury Web If you want to advertise a post on the Astbury web site, please follow the steps below, using the example as a guide. Notes Generated automatically from the 'Number of P
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 20 June, 2000, 10.00am Venue: Level 11, Astbury Building Present: Profs: S E V Phillips; S W Homans; S E Radford; P G Stockley; J A Trinick. Apolo
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology meeting 22 Date: 6 June 2001, 8.30 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Profs S W Homans (Chair); P J F Henderson; A P Johnson; S E Radford;
Confirmed Astbury Centre of Structural Molecular Biology Faculty of Biological Sciences Date: 8th September 1999, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; P G Stockley
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: Venue: Present: Apologies: Minutes 30 ACSMB/02/30/1 Minutes of last meeting Minor changes were made then the minutes of the 13th March meeting whi
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 9 August, 2000, 8.30 Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Prof P G Stockley (Chair); P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; S E Radford;
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: Venue: Present: Apologies: Minutes 17 ACSMB/00/17/1 Minutes of last meeting Minor corrections were made to the previous minutes, and then they wer
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Executive Committee Meeting Date: Wednesday 10 November 2004, 9.00 am Venue: Garstang Meeting Room (8.53f) Present: P
Astbury Centre of Structural Molecular Biology Faculty of Biological Sciences Date: 10th November 1999, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; P G Stockley; J A Trin
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: Venue: Present: Apologies: Minutes 20 ACSMB/01/20/1 Minutes of last meeting A minor correction was made to the previous minutes, and then they wer
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Executive Committee Meeting Date: Wednesday 13 April 2005, 9.00 am Venue: Garstang Tutorial Room B Present:
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 10 July 2002 .30 Venue: 8.109 Astbury Building Present: Profs P G Stockley (Chair); A P Johnson; S E Radford; J A Trinick; Dr A Berry. Apologies:
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 11 October, 2000, 8.30 Venue: PJFH's office, room 6.108b Present: Profs S E V Phillips (Chair); P J F Henderson; Prof P G Stockley; S E Radford. A
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 9th February, 2000, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; A P Johnson; P G Stockley; J A Trinick; Drs S E Radf
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Executive Committee Meeting Date: Wednesday 11 May 2005, 9.00 am Venue: Garstang Tutorial Room C Present:
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 6 December, 2000, 8.30 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Profs S E V Phillips (Chair); P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; S E
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 18 July 2001, 8.30 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Profs S W Homans (Chair); P J F Henderson; S E V Phillips; J
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 12 December 2001 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Prof P G Stockley (Chair); Dr A Berry; Profs A P Johnson; S E V Phillips; S E Rad
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Faculty of Biological Sciences Date: 11 August 1999, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs P G Stockley (in the Chair), P J F Henders
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 14 November 2001, 8.30 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Prof P G Stockley (Chair); Dr A Berry; Profs S W Homans; S E V Phillips; S
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 8th March, 2000, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs; J B C Findlay; P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; P G Stockley;
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 14 March 2001, 8.30Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E MantonPresent: Profs S E V Phillips (Chair); P J F Hen
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 13 September, 2000, 8.30 Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs S E V Phillips (Chair); P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; Prof
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 8th December 1999, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; P G Stockle
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: Venue: Present: Apologies: Minutes 19 ACSMB/01/18/1 Minutes of last meeting Minor corrections were made to the previous minutes, and then they wer
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 13 February 2002 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Prof P G Stockley (Chair); Dr A Berry; Profs S W Homans S E V Phillips; S E Radfo
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Executive Committee Meeting Date: Wednesday 8 September 2004, 9.00 am Venue: Garstang Meeting Room (8.53f) Present: P
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 12 July, 2000, 8.30 Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs: S E V Phillips; P J F Henderson; S W Homans; A P Johnson; S E Radford; Dr D
Unconfirmed Astbury Centre of Structural Molecular Biology Faculty of Biological Sciences Date: 13th October 1999, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; P G Stockle
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 13 March 2002 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Prof P G Stockley (Chair); Dr A Berry; Profs S W Homans; A P Johnson; S E V Phillips
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 12th January, 2000, 8.30am Venue: Manton building, room 7.94E Present: Profs, S E V Phillips; S W Homans; A P Johnson; P G Stockley; J A Trinick;
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Date: 12 September 2001, 8.30 Venue: SWH's office, room 7.94E Manton Present: Profs P G Stockley (Chair); A P Johnson; S E V Phillips; S E Radford; P J
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryL
The Astbury Society One of the key ways in which the Astbury centre is encouraging cross-departmental collaborations is through Postdoc/Postgrad-arranged social events. We are always looking for volun
People Principal Investigators Alison Ashcroft - mass spectrometry, mass spectrometry facility managerSteve Baldwin - membrane proteins, membrane transport, signal transduction, vesicular traffickingA
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
Andy Baron has been manager of the AUC and SPR facilities since 1999. Selected Publications Wood, J. Dennis, C. Bailey, S., Sedelnikova, S. Rogers, M. Stockley, P. Rogers, M. Baron, A. Jones, K. Light
Jim Titchmarsh is responsible for the HPLC service and the robotic synthesisers in the high throughput analytical suite in the School of Chemistry. Publications Synthesis of a library of stereo- and r
Dr Chi Trinh is the Manager of the X-ray Crystallography Facility in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds. Dr Chi Trinh is responsib
Dr. The JIF Centre The JIF Centre offers state-of-the-art facilities for HPLC and FPLC purification of peptides, nucleic acids and proteins, solid phase synthesis of oligonucleotides (DNA and RNA) and
Dr Simon Connell is facility manager for Scanning Probe Microscope resources within the Institute for Molecular Biophysics. Research Simon's research interest is concerned with the development and app
Dr. Research interests. See NMR facility page Selected Publications: 2005 Peckham M, Kalverda AP , Stafford WF, Knight PJ (2005) A stable, single stranded alpha-helix in unconventional myosins. Plattt
Dr. Research Chris Gell's personal research interests are in the area of single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy. Recently he has co-authored a text in this subject area (“Handbook of Single Molecul
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
Positions available Exciting opportunities exist for joining the projects outlined on these pages. Please contact supervisors of projects of interest to obtain further information. One BBSRC-funded Ma
News The Astbury awayday was held on November 3rd at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Centre enjoyed a day of presentations, followed by a poster session and wine reception. The Astbury Quiz night was hel
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Annual Report 2004 INDEX TO THE 2004 REPORT The full 2004 report can be downloaded as an 16MB pdf file here. Individual reports can be downloaded as pdf
Research Martin's office is on Level 8 of the Astbury Building. Welcome to Martin Parker, who has recently taken up an appointment as a University Research Fellow. Jenny Gilmartin has taken on a new r
Postgraduate Study within the Astbury Centre Degree in Chemistry, Physics or in any Biological Science and interested in doing a PhD within The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology? Are you
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Our 4 year PhD Programme on the Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and taught an
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Introduction The results from the various genome projects are providing a wealth of information on nucleic acid and pro
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Wellcome Trust Supervisor Profiles The following is a list of Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Supervisors and their research
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Interdisciplinary Research Areas The various research programmes within the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Bio
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Contact Details Enquiries are welcome. Please contact the: Programme Administrator, Fatima Noor for any informal enquir
Wellcome Trust 4-year PhD Programme The Molecular Basis of Biological Mechanisms Eligibility and How to Apply Our principal aim is to attract students of the highest intellectual quality who are excit
Astbury Centre Postgraduate Application Form Submission of an application for a place for postgraduate study in the Astbury Centre is a two stage process: This page will guide you through the process.
CASE Awards CASE (Co-operative Awards in Science and Engineering) awards are organised by the UK Research Councils (e.g. Any BBSRC Doctoral Training Grant (DTG) studentship can be jointly supervised
Annual Reports Each year, since its foundation in 1999, the staff of the Astbury Centre have contributed short research articles to describe their successes and advances in the previous 12 months. 200
Crystal structure of the Holliday junction- resolving enzyme T7 endonuclease I at 2.1Å resolution Jon Hadden, Maire Convery and Simon Phillips Introduction Homologous genetic recombination is importan
The crystal structure of Hepatitis C virus RNA polymerase complexed with nucleotides and metal ions Damien O’Farrell, Rachel Trowbridge, Nicola Stock, Henric Ekstrand, Dave Rowlands & Joachim Jäger I
Protein engineering of aldolase and the sialic acid synthesising enzymes Alan Berry, Gavin Williams, Jijun Hao, Silvie Domann and Venty Suryanti Introduction Organic chemists are increasingly turning
NMR facility Arnout Kalverda, Steve Homans Equipment The NMR facility has benefited from the installation of two new NMR spectrometers, a 500 MHz and a 600 MHz VARIAN INOVA, in February 2000. Towards
Molecular interactions in the assembly of bacteriophage f 29 Stephanie Fonseca, Jonathan Wood and Nicola J. Introduction During assembly, a virus must recognise and package its genome with complete fi
Bioinformatics of macromolecular sequence and structure Nikolaos Darzentas, Nicola Gold, Vidhya Krishnan, Andrew Nightingale, Howard Parish, Steven Pickering, Michael Sadowski, Amy Williams, David Wes
The structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipoarabinomannan (LAM) Achim Treumann, Steve Homans Introduction Tuberculosis is an increasing and major world-wide problem, especially in Africa where the
Replication and maintenance of Staphylococcal plasmids Jamie Caryl, Fotis Papadopoulos, Matt Smith and Chris Thomas Introduction Plasmids are small pieces of DNA resident within a bacterial cell that
Structural determination of a chemically modified RNA translational operator complexed with bacteriophage MS2 coat protein Wilf Horn, Maire Convery, Nicola Stonehouse, Chi Trinh, Peter Stockley and Si
NMR studies of the structure of the Verotoxin B subunit from E. coli O157 with its receptor Gb3. Gary Thompson, Hiroki Shimizu, Steve Homans. Introduction Since the discovery of E.coli 0157 in Argenti
Muscle group - Myosin V project Peter Knight, Matt Walker, Stan Burgess and John Trinick For the past ~50 years the central problem of muscle contraction has been to understand the molecular mechanism
Biophysical studies of b2-microglobulin amyloid formation David Smith, Victoria McParland, Susan Jones, Neil Kad, Sheena Radford Introduction Amyloid disease involves the association of protein or pep
Biology of bacterial peptidoglycan synthesis Lars Hesse, Chris Storey, Simon Phillips, Ian Chopra Introduction Peptidoglycan (PG), which forms a sacculus around the bacterial cell, is an essential cel
Searching for the native structure Andrew Capaldi, Neil Ferguson, Graham Spence, Claire Friel, Stan Gorski, Graham Spence, Andrew CapaldiSheena Radford Introduction Most single domain proteins can fol
Purine transporters in humans and protozoan parasites Steve Baldwin, Marie Parker, Ralph Hyde Introduction Malaria, resulting from infection by protozoa of the genus Plasmodium, causes more than 300 m
Control of peripheral and integral membrane protein localisation in eukaryotes Vas Ponnambalam & Emma Stanley Background The maintenance of intracellular compartments such as the nucleus, endoplasmic
Structural studies of processing in galactose oxidase Susan Firbank, Peter Knowles, Mike McPherson, Simon Phillips. Introduction Galactose oxidase (GO) is a monomeric copper containing enzyme that cat
Molecular studies on active nucleoside transport proteins Steve Baldwin, Dawn Hadden, Ralph Hyde Introduction Nucleoside uptake is essential for the synthesis of nucleotides by salvage pathways in man
Muscle group - Titin project Larissa Tskhovrebova, Alex Liversage, Peter Knight, Lesley Wilson and John Trinick The role of titin in muscle elasticity is being explored. The question of relating the s
Transcriptional control Sipra Deb, Ferenc Marincs, Phil Bardelang, Paul Beale, Jenny Baker, Kenny McDowall, Alastair Smith Prokaryotes We have shown that the Bacillus subtilis homologue of sigma54, th
Mass spectrometry facility Alison E. Overview of facility The mass spectrometry facility (http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/facil/mass.htm) has a Platform II single-quadrupole electrospray instrument wit
Biophysical studies of the dynamics and mechanism of Class II fructose 1,6-bisphosphate aldolase Christine Hilcenko, Arnout P. Introduction The importance of protein dynamics in enzyme catalysis and s
Structural and functional studies on Hepatitis C virus non-structural proteins. Mustapha Aoubala, Katherine Crowder, John Holt, Andrew Macdonald, Mick Miller and Mark Harris Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is
Structural and functional studies on the HIV-1 Nef protein. Caitriona Dennis, Gemma Dixon, Nicky Kingswell, Matt Bentham, Joachim Jäger and Mark Harris Nef is a 205 amino acid regulatory protein that
Subtle changes in the fingers domain of DNA polymerase ß influence nucleotide discrimination and fidelity Danyal Conn, Andrew Capaldi, Joanne Sweasy#, and Joachim Jäger Departments of Therapuetic Radi
Fast folding kinetics of apomyoglobin initiated by a nanosecond temperature jum George Dimitriadis, Adam Drysdale, Maria Healy, Alastair Smith, Sheena Radford Introduction In the past decade, experime
Proteomics and allied technologies. Jeff Keen. Introduction State-of-the-art instrumentation for the characterisation of proteins is an essential component of an active research environment in structu
Reflection-selection of RNA aptamers Chris Adams, Roma Rambaran, Andrea Coates, David Bunka, James Strachan Peter Stockley RNA aptamers are being selected against a number of small peptide targets com
Single molecule spectroscopy to probe folding of individual proteins Chris Gell, David Brockwell, Godfrey Beddard, Sheena Radford & Alastair Smith Introduction Spectroscopic measurements of concentrat
Further development and applications of computer programs for de novo ligand design Erika Biro, Krisztina Boda, Michael Briggs, David Cosgrove, Szabolcs Czepregi, Jeff Marchaland, Mark Stewart, Zsolt
Investigation of the ligand binding site in the glucuronide-H+ symporter, GusB, in Escherichia coli, using chemical and solid state NMR spectroscopy approaches J. A. Introduction Alkyl or aryl b -D-gl
Efficient resonance assignment and global fold determination of backbone labelled proteins Alexander Giesen, Steve Homans Introduction As the result of a massive effort several genomes have been sequ
RNA-protein recognition/virus assembly Hugo Lago, Tim Moss, Andrew M. The MS2 translational repression complex, that also serves as an assembly initiation complex, continues to provide unique insights
Structure-function analysis of G protein- coupled receptors Nirmala Bhogal, Alan Cox, Mark Wigglesworth, Mohammed Sheikh Taj and John Findlay. Introduction. Our work centres around Family A (rhodopsin
Structural studies of AhrC, the arginine activator/repressor from Bacillus subtilis Caitriona Dennis, James Garnett, Mark Parsons, Simon Phillips. Introduction The concentration of the amino acid L-ar
Crystallographic studies of copper amine oxidase Helen Dawkes, Peter Knowles, Christian Kurtis, Mike McPherson, Simon Phillips, Carrie Wilmot Introduction Copper amine oxidases are ubiquitous metalloe
Atomic force microscopy of protein-protein and DNA-protein interactions Neil H. The atomic force microscope (AFM) This is a high resolution microscopy that can be operated in vacuum, air and fluid. Am
Single molecule techniques in protein folding Anthony Blake, Chris Gell, David Brockwell, John Clarkson, Godfrey Beddard, John Trinick, Sheena Radford, Alastair Smith. Introduction Recent advances in
Astbury Seminars 2000 Monday 10th January, 2000 Prof. Thursday 3rd February Dr Sipra Deb (School of Biology, University of Leeds) "Dynamics of Eukaryotic Transcription as monitored by Surface Plasmo
A general, two-directional synthesis of C-a(1® 6)-linked disaccharides Michael Harding, Robert Hodgson and Adam Nelson Introduction C-Linked glycosides are a particularly interesting class of carbohyd
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Annual Report 2005 INDEX TO THE 2005 REPORT The full 2005 report can be downloaded as an 14MB pdf file here. Individual reports can be downloaded as pdf
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Annual Report 2003 INDEX TO THE 2003 REPORT The full 2003 report can be downloaded as an 11.5MB pdf filehere Individual reports can be downloaded as pdf
Seminars Thursday 19 April 2007 4 pm Astbury Level 11 Prof Colin Robinson, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick Transport of folded proteins by the twin-arginine translocation sy
Friday 14 January 2005 at 1 pm, RSLT16 Dr Derek Marsh, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Gottingen, Germany Title: Membrane lipids and beta-barrel proteins Host: Peter Knowles Thursday
Introduction and Welcome from the Director The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology (ACSMB) is an interdisciplinary research centre of the University of Leeds. The ACSMB today continues thi
W.T. W.T.Astbury FRS (1898-1961) Bill Astbury graduated from Cambridge with a Physics degree in 1921 and went to work as a researcher for Sir William Bragg in London. He moved to the University of Lee
Molecular Biology Astbury's Definition of Molecular Biology It is concerned particularly with the forms of biological molecules and ..... is predominantly three-dimensional and structural - which does
Research The Centre brings together a large group of structural molecular biologists, chemists and physicists working on the structure and function of a wide range of biological molecules, biomolecula
X-ray Facility Leeds' single crystal X-ray facility has been designated an 'International Site of Excellence' by the Molecular Structure Corporation (MSC). The facilities are available to external use
Mass Spectrometry Facility Manager: Dr Alison E. Contents: 1. Sample analysis facility The mass spectrometry facility is situated in Laboratory 9.107 of the Astbury Building at the University of Leeds
An Introduction to Mass Spectrometry Dr Alison E. CONTENTS Mass spectrometry is an analytical tool used for measuring the molecular mass of a sample. For large samples such as biomolecules, molecular
Electron Microscopy The Electron Microscope Suite is located on Level 5 of the Miall Building. New FEG microscope installed. The new FEI Tecnai G2 F20 field emission gun (FEG) electron microscope was
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Biacore Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Leeds is one of the few Universities in the UK equipped with two automated SPR devices, a BIACORE 2000 (Biacore
Spectroscopy A variety of instruments capable of measuring different types of spectra are available within the Astbury Centre. Fourier Transform Infra Red Circular Dichroism Stopped flow fluorescence/
Ultra-violet Resonance Raman Spectroscopy Fluorescence is by far the most widely used spectroscopic tool in Life Science research today. Raman spectroscopy can provide similar information to infra-red
Stopped flow fluorescence We are fortunate to have two instruments capable of measuring stopped flow fluorescence (and absorbance) that are available to members of the Astbury Centre. To book these in
Circular Dichroism We are equipped with a Jasco J715 spectropolarimeter with a 6 cell changer, peltier temperature control, stopped flow capabilities and automated temperature ramping. What is CD? Cir
FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) The Astbury Centre operates a Nicolet 560 FTIR instrument. If you are a new user and would like to use the FTIR please contact Dr A. What is FTIR? The fr
Time Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy Steady state fluorescence spectroscopy is widely used in Life Sciences research to study biomolecular interactions and kinetics. There are several ways to perfo
Ultra-fast Mixing Apparatus Introduction Over the last few years, the folding transitions of various proteins have been studied using a variety of approaches, including stopped flow and quench flow me
Single Molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy In recent years it has become possible to probe the structure, dynamics and interactions of biological systems on a molecule by molecule basis using fluoresce
NMR Centre The main focus of research in the NMR centre is on protein dynamics and the link between dynamics and thermodynamics in ligand binding to proteins. The NMR technique is unique in its power
NMR Spectrometers Spectrometers All our spectrometers have the same basic configuration with four channels (typically setup as 1H - 13C - 15N - 2H). All the spectrometers are equiped with FTS Airjet s
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology NMR Computer Facilities NMR and structural modelling is very computer intensive and we have access to a range of computers and programmes. Workst
Gallery Leeds Research Spotlights and Structures .... A Gallery of Astbury Centre Front Page Images A Gallery of Structures associated with the Astbury Centre MS2 coat protein dimer and an RNA hairpi
Pseudoazurin NMR solution structure of Cu(I) pseudoazurin from Paracoccus pantotrophus (Thompson et al., Protein Science 9, 846-858 (2000)). The protein serves as an electron transport protein in deni
The picture shows the three-dimensional solution structure of the MS2-11C RNA stem loop from the MS2 bacteriophage. The structure shows a number of dramatic differences from the structure of the stem
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
MS2 coat protein dimer and an RNA hairpin The crystal structure of the complex between the MS2 coat protein dimer (shown in green) and an RNA hairpin (shown as a space-filled model) at 2.85 Å resoluti
E.coli Amine Oxidase Oxygen in action. Rapid freezing has allowed catalytic intermediates to be trapped in crystals of E. coli amine oxidase, allowing an atomic resolution "movie of catalysis" to be c
Amine oxidases are ubiquitous copper-containing enzymes which contain within their active sites a novel quinone redox cofactor formed by the post-translational modification of a tyrosine side chain fr
This picture shows the three-dimensional solution structure of the B subunit of the toxin derived from E. coli O157. Richardson et al. (1997) Nature Structural Biology 4, 190-193 This molecule has bee
This is a still from a movie depicting Alexa Fluor488-labelled biotinylated DNA molecules that have been specifically attached to a glass coverslip, coated with biotinylated bovine serum albumin, via
Galactose oxidase is produced by the fungus Fusarium, a plant pathogen. The groups of Profs Knowles and Phillips, Drs McPherson, Parsons, Wilmot and Halcrow (Chemistry) are interested in the mechanism
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The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Privacy Statement PRIVACY STATEMENT If you have any queries relating to the privacy statement then please contact astburywebmaster@leeds.ac.uk wh
Undergraduate Summer Studentships Eligibility To be eligible for a place on this scheme, you must: Be in the middle years of your first degree;Be registered for a basic science or veterinary degree at
Constitution of the Astbury Centre Constitution 1. Aims of the Centre The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, hereinafter referred to as "The Centre" or "ACSMB", will promote interdiscipl
History of the Astbury Centre The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology (ACSMB) was formally constituted as a University Interdisciplinary Research Centre in 1999. "The Braggs and Astbury: L
age 1 revious page next page back to top The Braggs and Astbury Leeds and the Beginning of Molecular Biology A C T North Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology The University of L
age 2 revious page next page back to top William Henry Bragg He graduated in Mathematics from Cambridge in 1885. He had done some work in the Physics department and become known to J J Thomson
age 3 revious page next page back to top William Henry Bragg the early Adelaide years On his appointment in 1886, he found that, with just one assistant, he was entirely responsible for all
age 4 revious page next page back to top William Henry Bragg later Adelaide years Röntgen had discovered X-rays in 1895, but their nature was the subject of controversy. It was not until 1903
age 5 revious page next page back to top W H Bragg in Leeds Bragg's Laboratory was in this single-storey building The Parkinson Building now stands at the corner site
age 6 revious page next page back to top W H and W L Bragg in Leeds & Cambridge (1) WHB wrote to Schuster (a Cambridge physicist) enclosing this diagram. Also in 1912, WHB's elder son (WLB) gr
age 7 revious page next page back to top William Lawrence Bragg W D Rudge R W James W A Jenkins J K Robertson W L Bragg V J Pavlov S Kalandyk F W Aston H A McTaggart H Smith F Kerschb
age 8 revious page next page back to top WHB and WLB Leeds & Cambridge (2) WHB had constructed an X-ray spectrometer in Leeds, which gave much more reliable measurements than the Cambridge
age 9 revious page next page back to top Sodium Chloride Professor H E Armstrong, in a letter to Nature, 1927: "Professor W L Bragg asserts that ‘in Sodium Chloride there appear to be no molec
age 10 revious page next page back to top WHB and WLB: The war years WHB became much involved with scientific advice to the government and decided to move from Leeds to University College
age 11 revious page next page back to top WHB and WLB: post-war After the war, WHB and WLB continued their X-ray diffraction studies, but agreed to work on different aspects. In 1919 WLB s
age 12 revious page next page back to top Astbury moves to Leeds "I have a man here who might possibly make you the research scientist you want – W T Astbury. In those days, all textiles wer
age 13 revious page next page back to top Astbury in Leeds Astbury was appointed as Lecturer in 1928 and became Professor of Biomolecular Structure in 1945. He died in 1961, aged 63. In the op
age 14 revious page next page back to top The Principle of X-ray diffraction X-ray diffraction occurs when X-rays fall on an object having regular repeating features of comparable size to the
age 15 revious page next page back to top The Nature of Crystals Crystals are made up from a regular pattern of unit cells, of an identical shape and content, which fill space. Each unit cell
age 16 revious page next page back to top The Nature of Fibrous Materials But they are not always lined up longitudinally with their neighbours on either side. As with normal crystals, we stil
age 17 revious page next page back to top X-ray Diffraction from Fibrous Polymers cellulose alpha keratin (wool) beta keratin (silk) collagen (tendon) X-ray fibre diagrams from naturally occur
age 18 revious page next page back to top The Structure of Cellulose Fibres Cellulose, the major structural polymer of plants, is an unbranched polymer of identical glucose units, which face i
age 19 revious page next page back to top The Structure of Protein Chains The amino-acid side chains have widely differing sizes and properties: positively charged, e.g. lysine negativel
age 20 revious page next page back to top Astbury’s models for keratin Astbury based his model for the 'contracted' form of wool keratin (A) on the structure of cellulose (C), having been str
age 21 revious page next page back to top Astbury’s classification of fibrous proteins by consideration of their density, mechanical properties and X-ray diagrams, Astbury was led to the follo
age 22 revious page next page back to top The alpha-beta transformation But it does explain the shrinking of wool and 'permanent waves' are formed when hair is treated with appropriate chemi
age 23 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (1) The correct conformations for the alpha and beta structures were derived by Linus Pauling and Robert Corey. They had realised
age 24 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (2) In the beta sheet adjacent strands may go alternately up and down (as shown here) or they may all be pointing the same way.
age 25 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (3) In the 'cross-beta' fold (first given that term by K M Rudall), the strands weave their way back and forth across the width
age 26 revious page next page back to top Astbury’s ideas on globular proteins Astbury naturally wondered about the structures of globular proteins and he expected them to be more highly order
age 27 revious page next page back to top WLB and globular proteins WLB had moved to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1938 where he obtained support from the Medical Research Council,
age 28 revious page next page back to top X-ray Diffraction from Crystalline Globular Proteins It was still not easy to derive the atomic positions from the X-ray data which lack information a
age 29 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (4) The first 3-d structure of a globular protein was that of myoglobin, the oxygen storage protein abundant in muscles. Astbury h
age 30 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (5) However, parts of the lysozyme chain are folded in a rather irregular form. Lysozyme is an anti-bacterial enzymes which breaks
age 31 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (6) Its structure contains just one alpha helix and it is mainly in the form of beta strands which form two sheets. The gap betwee
age 32 revious page next page back to top Protein chain folds (7) The combination of alpha helices, beta strands and less-ordered regions, with the beta strands often forming sheets, has been
age 33 revious page next page back to top Astbury on protein denaturation It had long been known that both fibrous and soluble globular proteins could be 'denatured' by heat or chemical treatm
age 34 revious page next page back to top Protein denaturation & Amyloid diseases Protein folding mechanisms are currently being studied in the Astbury Centre by Sheena Radford and her col
age 35 revious page next page back to top Astbury’s ideas on nucleic acids DNA extracted from cells is in the form of a gel; if a needle is poked into the gel and then withdrawn slowly, a fibr
age 36 revious page next page back to top The correct structure for DNAThe correct structure for DNA was deduced by Francis Crick and James Watson, working in W L Bragg's department in Cambrid
age 37 revious page next page back to top Base-pairing in DNA (1) A:T and G:C base pairs can be linked by hydrogen bonds, shown by dotted lines and these pairs may be exactly superimposed (see
age 38 revious page next page back to top Base-pairing in DNA (2) Note that the bonds linking each base to the sugar rings superimpose exactly and consequently the two types of base-pair can b
age 39 revious page next page back to top DNA models Astbury's sketch Crick's sketch DNA as published in Voet & Voet'sBiochemistry The final models for DNA were determined by Wilkins's group,
age 40 revious page next page back to top The term ‘Molecular Biology’ Astbury gave the following definition in 1961: “Molecular biology implies not so much a technique as an approach, an appr
age 41 revious page next page back to top Astbury’s conception of his role in science His work may be criticised because, while he initiated molecular structural studies on a wide range of mat
age 43 revious page next page back to top Summary John Locke wrote in 1620 in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, h
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology HomeIntroductionHistoryConstitutionNewsResearchPeopleFacilitiesAnnual ReportSeminarsGalleryLinksSite GuideIntranetPositions availablePhD Opportun
The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Facilities In addition to facilities in the Centre itself, it is part of a consortium managing ESRF Beam Line BM14 for the UK protein crystallogr
Scanning Probe Microscope Facilities Within the Astbury Centre, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, there is a broad range of scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) including scanning tunnelling mi
Fermentation Facility A fermenter facility has been established in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology and is located within Professor Peter Henderson's laboratory (Astbury 6.110). Pre
Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Analytical Ultracentrifugation (AUC) Facility Manager: Andy Baron a.j.baron@leeds.ac.uk Tel: 0113 343 7278 Introduction The instruments can be used t
Velocity runs are performed in 2-sector cells which each require at least 400 m l of sample, and 400 m l buffer for the reference. It is recommended that the buffer be in dialysis equilibrium with the
Example The plot below shows successive radial absorbance scans of a protein with a monomeric mass of 16.4 kDa centrifuged at 55000 rpm for 5 hours at 10°C in 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.95), 0.5 M KCl, 0.6
Chemistry Facilities De novo ligand design The SPROUT software suite has been developed at Leeds for the de novo design of ligands for macromolecules. Synthetic chemistry laboratories The discovery of
JIF Centre Facility Manager: Dr A Rashid (a.rashid@leeds.ac.uk) Tel: 0113 343 7279 Contents: 1. Location The Astbury Centre for Biomolecular Interactions is located in Laboratory 9.108 (Level 9) of th
Purification Protocols The Biomolecular Interactions JIF Centre contains a number of facilities for the purification of proteins, including BioCAD and AKTA purification systems and dedicated HPLC inst
Molecular Graphics The Centre has very extensive computing facilities, including clusters of high performance graphics workstations. Prospective users should initially contact Don Akrigg for facilitie