How we get from Molecules to Medicine

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid if you’re fancy, is really famous. You probably barely had to read the word before that double helix shape popped into your head. Thing is, DNA is 50,000x smaller than the average cell! So how on earth do we know what it looks like, and why is that important anyway? The answer involves crystals, physics and enormous X-ray lasers, and it tells us much, much more than you might think. Hear from Alex Snow, who got his PhD in protein X-ray crystallography about how this classic technique has transformed the way we see biology by looking at the smallest pieces of it.

From microbes to blue whales, all living things rely on proteins to survive. Digestion, DNA replication, sweating… proteins are behind them all, performing a wide variety of tasks and coming in an even wider variety of shapes and sizes. Since a protein’s structure determines its function, we need to see it to understand how it works. But proteins are tiny. More than 1000 times smaller than human cells so we can’t use any old microscope to do this, we need a cryo electron microscope! Come and hear how these extremely powerful microscopes allow us to discover what proteins do and how they do it.

Together we will delve into the world of structural biology and how it can lead to the discovery of novel therapies for untreatable diseases. Cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography can be used to determine the structure of proteins and understand how they work. In turn, we can take this information to develop treatments for diseases that come from non-functional proteins. A successful example is the treatments developed for Cystic Fibrosis. I'll take you from disease, molecules to medicine in this talk.