News

17 Sep 2024

Joshua Lawrence wins prizes for PhD research

Biochemistry PhD student Joshua Lawrence has received the Katharine Burr Blodgett Award for his doctoral research. This prize recognises outstanding work by a recent PhD graduate in the field of colloid and interface science. The prize is named in honour of Katharine Burr Blodgett, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in physics from the Univer…

5 Sep 2024

Translational funding awarded to advance novel cancer immunotherapy

Joint funding from the Cambridge Enterprise Technology Investment Fund and Cancer Research Horizons has been awarded to researchers Marc de la Roche (Department of Biochemistry) and Maike de la Roche (Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute).This funding will allow them to continue their development of Superkiller CAR-T cells, a novel strategy for s…

5 Sep 2024

Claudia Bonfio awarded European Research Council Starting Grant

It is a great pleasure to announce that Claudia Bonfio has been awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant. She comes back to Cambridge from the University of Strasbourg to join the Department of Biochemistry as a research group leader, after previous postdoctoral positions here at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the Department …

14 Aug 2024

New technology enables faster response to disease outbreaks like COVID-19

An article published in Nature Biotechnology by Katrin Fischer et al. from Florian Hollfelder’s group in collaboration with the groups of James Thaventhiran, Marko Hyvonen, Nick Matheson and Charlotte Deane establishes a new, generalised technology for finding potentially therapeutic antibodies in response to infectious disease outbreaks faster tha…

16 Jul 2024

A tale of two HUSH complexes: defending cells against invading retroelements

The HUSH complex preserves genome integrity through epigenetic silencing of invasive retroelements. A new study led by Josh Danac in the Tchasovnikarova lab now describes HUSH2, a related complex that instead represses interferon-stimulated genes. The cell exploits competition between HUSH and HUSH2 to couple retroelement silencing to the immune re…

12 Jul 2024

Hosting the next generation of scientists

Today we say farewell to our first-ever A-level student group of aspiring scientists. We have really enjoyed hosting them this week to gain experience of lab work and research life in Biochemistry. More information about the ASTP programme is here. 

11 Jul 2024

New article on how the Gallop Lab's research can help people with rare diseases

A feature on the Cambridge University website explores the Gallop Lab's research on how the actin cytoskeleton is involved in changing the shape of cells and moving them around as an embryo develops into a fully-formed organism, and how frogs can help people with rare diseases.Dr Jenny Gallop said: 'Our simplified system using frog egg extract was …

24 May 2024

Biochemistry PhD student wins social impact award

Congratulations to Sam Hodder, who has won the PhD Student Award for the 2024 Vice-Chancellor’s Social Impact Award! During a clinical placement, Sam developed Chum, a platform using stories and games to educate children about their cancer and treatments.

28 Feb 2024

Opening the tightly linked grass cell wall polymer network leads to improved biomass properties

The grass family provides staple foods for billions of people worldwide, feed for animals, and biomass for the production of bioenergy. Plant biomass is primarily composed of lignin and polysaccharides that crosslink and interact with each other, forming complex and tightly knit cell walls. These networks of wall components cause cell walls to be r…

14 Dec 2023

PomBase joins ELIXIR Core Data Resources

PomBase, the model organism database (MOD) curating molecular data for the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, has become one of the first two Cambridge University-based databases, and the first MOD to be selected as an ELIXIR Core Data Resource. PomBase is a collaborative project between the University of Cambridge and UCL. ELIXIR CDRs are E…

5 Dec 2023

Alex Borodavka's project ‘Unlocking RNA secrets’ selected for EMBO Young Investigator Programme

Alex Borodavka is one of 26 scientists from across Europe, India, Singapore, Taiwan and Chile, selected to join the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Programme. The initiative supports excellent young group leaders in the early stages of their independent careers, offering opportunities to build international networks and explore different ways o…

30 Nov 2023

New framework to interrogate the dynamics of the transcriptome and proteome at subcellular resolution will reveal insights into the role of RNA and protein localisation dynamics in disease

A paper published in Nature Methods presents the most comprehensive overview to date of RNA and protein subcellular localisation dynamics. The research groups of Kathryn Lilley in the Biochemistry Department, Cambridge and Anne Willis from the MRC Toxicology Unit together with colleagues in the Structural Biology Research Centre, Milan and the Depa…

2 Nov 2023

Fellowships and Awards 2023

2023 has been a wonderful year for the Department with some remarkable achievements by our students and faculty.Søren Hough was sole recipient of the Glover Research Award 2023, awarded to a recent PhD graduate based on scientific merit.Jeanne Salje, Group Leader in Bacterial Cell Biology, was appointed Fellow of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Bio…

11 Oct 2023

Dupree Group Awarded £1-million Innovate UK Grant

It is a great pleasure to announce that Professor Paul Dupree has been awarded a £1-million Innovate UK Grant with The Supplant Company. He said of this prestigious award to support business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation:“We are excited to be able to use our latest scientific research to support development of Supplant ingred…

5 Sep 2023

Engineering trees to be a more efficient and sustainable feedstock for biomass conversion

Ground-breaking experiments performed in the Dupree lab by Paul Dupree and Jan Lyczakowski were essential to understanding the ultrastructural effects of callose addition on the engineered wood in a paper published in Nature Plants.The article describes how through adding a naturally-occurring polymer that makes wood more porous, scientists have en…