Congratulations to Dr Judy Hirst, the MBU's Deputy Director, who has just been elected to the Fellowship of The Royal Society.
Superoxide dismutating molecules rescue the toxic effects of PINK1 and parkin loss
An image from the latest article from our Mitochondrial Neurodegeneration research group, led by Dr Alex Whitworth, has been selected for the cover of the May issue of Human Molecular Genetics.
Lay Summary
On Sunday, 25 March 2018, the MBU participated in the Cambridge Science Festival, Cambridge Biomedical Campus event. Our theme was "Sensational fluorescent fruit flies".
A project jointly led by Luke O’Neill at Trinity College, Dublin and Mike Murphy at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit has led to a paper published this week in Nature entitled, “Itaconate is an anti-inflammatory metabolite that activates Nrf2 via alkylation of KEAP1”.
1 March 2018 marks the first anniversary of the MRC MBU's transfer into the University of Cambridge, as a University Unit department within the School of Clinical Medicine.
To mark this event, we are sharing with you our scientific animations of mitochondria.
The 6th Annual Sir John Walker Lecture, 'Genomics approaches to mitochondrial physiology and disease', was delivered on Thursday, 22 February 2018, by Vamsi Mootha, MD.
Dr Mootha is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Systems Biology and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory is based in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, where he leads a research team dedicated to mitochondrial biology.
On Friday, 26 January 2018, members of the MBU visited St Mary's Church of England Primary School in Hackney, to showcase the Unit's science using Lego models, games, and three different experiments using leaves and flies.
The event was run as a carousel during timed sessions, with John Walker introducing each session and engaging in well-informed discussions with our very young hosts.
Researchers have shown for the first time how children can inherit a severe – potentially fatal – mitochondrial disease from a healthy mother.
The study, led by researchers from the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge, reveals that healthy people harbour mutations in their mitochondrial DNA and explains how cases of severe mitochondrial disease can appear unexpectedly in previously unaffected families.
In 1943, Erwin Schrödinger gave three public lectures entitled ‘What is Life?' at Trinity College Dublin.
Following their publication, these lectures had a tremendous influence on the development of molecular biology.
The 75th anniversary of these lectures will be celebrated with an unprecedented gathering of some of the most brilliant minds working in biology today, including six Nobel Laureates.
Mike Murphy is a member of the organising committee for this event, which will take place at Trinity College, Dublin on 5 and 6 September 2018.
On Thursday, 7 December 2017 two members of the MRC MBU visited the St Ivo Science Conference, where students presented recent scientific research on topics that they had chosen themselves.
The event emulated a scientific conference.
Just as would be required at such an event, the students displayed their posters on poster boards and stood beside them to answer any questions posed by viewers. Two students gave an excellent joint presentation to the guests (parents, judges, peers and tutors).
