Centre for Structural Biology Open Day 2024

On 16 May the Centre for Structural Biology held their annual open day on the South Kensington Campus.

It was an excellent day of science showcasing the breadth and diversity of the structural biology community at Imperial. The day was led by Professor Doryen Bubeck, Director of the Centre for Structural Biology and Dr Kostas Beis.

Imperial's Centre for Structural Biology is a cross-faculty Centre of Excellence that provides an inclusive hub for training and research in state-of-the-art structural biology. The annual Open Day brings together researchers at the forefront of structural biology and is an opportunity to showcase exciting new work from our early career researchers.

The morning session was devoted to early career researchers with a speed networking session that connected Imperial postdocs and students with representatives from start-ups and pharmaceutical companies. There was a stellar line-up including Senior Director of Astex Pamela Williams, UK Head of Structural and Biophysical Sciences at GSK, Chun-wa Chung, Principal Scientist Manuel Pinto at Avacta, and Oliver Sims from venture capitalist firm Octopus Ventures.

In the afternoon, Christos Pliotas from the University of Manchester showed the power of integrating electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy with structural biology to investigate dynamic cellular processes.

From the University of Exeter, Vicki Gold presented her recent discoveries filamentous phage infection, and David Drew from Stockholm University explained how he uses structural biology to explore membrane protein transporters.

"CSB Open Day is one of my favourite events of the academic year. We get to see the diversity of structural biology research being done across Imperial, with a focus on early career researchers."

With over 100 registered attendees, the Open Day also included talks from researchers from the Departments of Life Sciences and Chemistry in the Faculty of Natural Sciences as well as the Laboratory of Medical Sciences and Department of Metabolism Digestion and Reproduction in the Faculty of Medicine.

In addition, there were attendees from Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Department of Bioengineering to round out a day of interdisciplinary science and collaboration.

Professor Doryen Bubeck, Director of the Centre for Structural Biology, said: ‘CSB Open Day is one of my favourite events of the academic year. We get to see the diversity of structural biology research being done across Imperial. It is a great event which brings together exciting science from both academia and industry with a focus on early career researchers.’