Researchers from Adrien Rousseau’s lab in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit at the University of Dundee, Scotland, have identified mechanisms contributing to the stress-induced reduction in protein translation using yeast. This new study is now published in EMBO Journal.

When cells encounter a virus, they respond by upregulating the expression of hundreds of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). ISG15 is a ubiquitin-like protein that is highly upregulated in response to viral infection and has critical roles in the innate immune response.

Dr Dina Dikovskaya, a senior research associate in the MRC PPU, has been awarded a Career Enhancing Grant by British Society for Immunology to conduct a pilot study on the importance of the oxidative stress response in Crohn’s disease.

This scheme offers flexible financial support to help BSI members at all career stages to benefit their careers.

Dr Chiara Maniaci has been awarded £1.5 million to fund her research for the next eight years, from the highly esteemed University Research Fellowship from the

Ricardo Moreno Ballesteros, a PhD student in the Virdee lab, has been awarded first prize in the Converge Kickstart Challenge. This competition is for aspiring entrepreneurs, emerging from Scottish universities, to showcase their aptitude and passion for commercialising their research.

Elin conducted her honours project focusing on lysosomal immunoprecipitation in the Sammler lab in 2022 and has received high commendation for her honours thesis in the Life Science category at the Global Undergraduate Awards 2023.

Eukaryotic cells make a single copy of their chromosomes before cell division, to ensure that the genetic blueprint can be passed on intact from one generation to the next. The molecular machinery that copies chromosomes is called the replisome and is built around an 11-subunit DNA helicase called CMG (CDC45-MCM-GINS), which unwinds the DNA duplex to allow DNA polymerases to copy the genome.

Targeted protein degradation (TPD), induced by enforcing proximity in cells between a target protein and an enzyme called E3 ubiquitin ligase using small molecules has become an important drug discovery approach for targeting previously undruggable disease-causing proteins.

We are delighted to learn that Dr Kirby Swatek from the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC-PPU) at the University of Dundee has been awarded a highly prestigious Lister Research Prize Fellowship.

After receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from Scotland’s Life Science Industry in March 2023 (Previous article), Philip Cohen has now received The Herald Higher Education Lifetime Achievement Award.