Project Description:
Image credit – http://www.leeds.ac.uk/forstaff/news/article/4762/university_announces_17m_astbury_biostructure_laboratory
A new £17 million facility provides the globally renowned Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at Leeds University with instruments for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Electron Microscopy that can compete with the very best in the world.
Professor Sheena Radford FRS, Director of the Astbury Centre, said: “The biomedical challenges we face today include complex disorders associated with ageing, cancer, lifestyle and drug resistance. To develop new therapies for these diseases, we need to understand biological structures at a molecular level and this investment will keep Leeds at the forefront of this science.”
2 extremely powerful 300kV electron microscopes will enable researchers to obtain fresh insights into the molecular structrure of both diseased and healthy cells and how pathogenic cells like bacteria and viruses attack them. These microscopes will help determine the structural makeup of individual molecules and the “complexes” that they make with unprecented levels of detail.
In addition, a new ultra sensitive 950 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer is also being funded. This will enable more deeper understanding of healthy cells and how they malfunction when diseased.
Fully refurbished facilities will house the new equipment along with existing 120kV and 200kV electron microscopes as well as 500, 600 and 750 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance machines.
The Astbury Centre is protected by an OX-AN® Zoned System.