division of molecular biosciences department of life sciences faculty of natural sciences imperial...
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Division of Molecular BiosciencesDepartment of Life Sciences Faculty of Natural SciencesImperial College London
Prof. Paul Freemont (Head of Division)Prof. Mike Sternberg (Deputy Head)
Molecular Biosciences
• Strategic aims -
• To understand at the molecular level (including visualisation) the function of cells as an integrated system including details of individual components and biological mechanisms which constitute the system
• To apply this information in the development of new research themes such as Systems Biology, Synthetic Biology and Drug Discovery.
Molecular Bioscience Division Profile
• Academic Staff: 19• Independent Research Fellows: 5 • Postdoctoral Fellows: 59• PhD and Master Students: 78• Grants held = £24M• Grants 06/07 spend = £6M• Collaborations and support from industry primarily in
Biopharma and Biotech.• Two Spin out companies: Equinox Pharma and
NanoBioDesign
• Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics– Systems understanding of living cells and organisms at different scales
• Synthetic Biology – Design and manufacture of biologically based parts, devices and systems and redesigning existing, natural biological systems
• Atomic Biology – Imaging cells at atomic resolution using interdisciplinary structural biology techniques
• Biomedical Glycobiology – Using glycan analyses and functional studies of sugar receptors in cellular recognition with an emphasis on disease states
• Membrane Protein Structural Biology – The application of new methods to express, crystallize and solve the structures of membrane proteins focused on therapeutically important human GPCR receptors.
• Bio-Solar Energy - the artificial leaf and hydrogen production• Academic Drug Discovery and Biopharmaceutical Processing– Utilisation of
bioinformatics, protein structure and screening to facilitate drug discovery and manufacture
Interdisciplinary research themes in MBS
• Centre for Structural Biology (Prof. Steve Matthews) http://www.imperial.ac.uk/structuralbiology• Centre for Bioinformatics (Prof. Mike Sternberg)
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/bioinformatics• Centre for Integrated Systems Biology (Prof. Jaroslav
Stark)http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/bioinformatics/CISB/
• Centre for Electron Microscopy (Profs. Marin van Heel and Paul Freemont)
• Glycobiology Training, Research and Infrastructure Centre (Prof. Anne Dell FRS) http://www.imperial.ac.uk/glycoTRIC
• Cross-Faculty NMR Centre (Prof. Steve Matthews) http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/nmrcentre
Interdisciplinary Research Centres
• Bioreactor suite• Robotic crystallisation• X-ray data collection• Bioanalytical suite • High-field NMR• Cryo-electron microscopy• Mass spectrometry• Structural Bioinformatics • High performance computing
• Run MRes in Structural Biology•
Structural Biology:Facilities and Infrastructure
CISBIC
• Centre for Integrative Systems Biology at Imperial College
• BBSRC/EPSRC funded £6M from Sept 2005 for 5 years
• But “What is Systems Biology” ?
What is Systems Biology?
Very many interpretations!
What is Systems Biology?
• Explaining and predicting biological processes by integrating knowledge about both the parts and their interactions and not just the sum of the parts
CISBIC vision
• Higher level of complexity requires an iterative cycle of wet biology and modelling
Three integrated sub-projects
Exemplar project on host-pathogen interaction
Systems Biology developments
• Research– Additional BBSRC SABR
grants led by CISBIC– Funding of a research
centre and project by Syngenta
– New appointments - Dr Robert Endres (next speaker)
• Teaching– Final year UG module– MSc in Bioinformatics and
Theoretical Systems Biology
– New MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology (Oct 08) with CISBIC and the IoSSB
Exemplar Project
Core Facilities and Outreach
New Projects
Years 1 – 5
Data Integration
Glycoproteomics
Dell
Core Facilities
Transcriptomics
Kafatos + CSC
Cell Imaging
MageeMetabonomics
Nicholson SternbergButcher
Proteomic and Glycomics
• World leading mass spectrometry
Bioinformatics Support Service
• Dr Sarah Butcher (Head) + 5 staff• Bioinformatics software, databases and
hardware• Help via web site and e-mail help-desk • Undertake small scale and large scale support
including bespoke programming• Several grants now fund full or part posts in
BBS to deliver robust data management (now a BBSRC requirement)
• Runs training workshops
Major Collaborations
• Dr Gerard Bishop (Biology) – Sequencing the Tomato genome (2 grants)
• Dr Pietro Spanu (Biology) – Sequencing Blumeria graminis genome (1 grant)
• Dr David Leak (Biology) – Pichia protein secretion (1 grant)
• CISBIC (various)• Other collaborations ongoing with Physics,
Chemistry, Computing, Faculty of Medicine (various divisions), other universities in UK and outside
Synthetic Biology developments
• Research– Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (cross-
faculty)• EPSRC Science and Innovation application (April
08)• Bio-energy and bio-fuels (with Biology)• Strategic appointments in Synthetic Biology
• Teaching– Final year UG module with Bioengineering– New MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology (Oct 08)
with CISBIC and the IoSSB
Examples of collaborations within DoLS
• Patwardhan & Onesti - Single particle e.m. of the MCM complex• Sternberg & Sinden - Functional annotation of Plasmodium• Sternberg & Christophides – Plant systems biology• Stumpf & Spanu – Fungal pathogens of plants• Stumpf & Buck – Bacterial stress response pathways• Zhang & Buck - Structural mechanisms of bacterial transcription• Matthews & Frankel - Structural basis of pathogenecity• Freemont & Mann - Structure of cell cycle phosphatases• Dell & Haslam with Crisanti - Mosquito proteomics• Dell & Halslam with Ushkariov - Proteomics• Bioinformatics Support Service….• And more….
And more collaborations
• Ernesto Cota and Pietro Spanu• Anne Dell & Stuart Haslam with
– Andreas Crisanti (Mosquito proteomics)– Yuri Ushkaryov,
Mechanisms for Collaborations
• Need to be proactive before grant announcement
• Focused workshops on themes appropriate for support by research funding bodies
• Are there realistic Departmentally-driven incentives?– e.g. should more of our small pool of PhD
students be directed towards collaborative project?
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