Home
The Astbury Centre
Our members address major questions associated with biological mechanisms in areas as diverse as membrane proteins; protein folding and assembly; viruses; and motor proteins. The Astbury Centre hosts 4-year PhD programmes funded by the Wellcome Trust and BBSRC that equip students with the wide range of expertise that may be used to address fundamental biological questions.
Download the Astbury Centre Brochure 2026
Watch the Astbury Centre video
Visit the Astbury Bluesky account for the latest news and announcements.
News
New initiatives putting glycoscience on the map
Glycoscience, the ‘science of carbohydrates’, sits at the crossroads of chemistry, biology and physics, shaping how we understand everything from drug design to new materials. Two new initiatives have recently launched that aim to build the glycoscience momentum both in the UK and across Europe. What is glycoscience? We tend to think of sugars as...
How does the body stop bleeding?
For the first time, scientists at University of Leeds reveal a complex mechanism behind blood clotting. The findings, published in Science Advances, visualise a key component of blood clotting - platelet myosin – and how it is activated. activated. Using the powerful cryo-EM technology imaging equipment housed in the Astbury Biostructure Laboratory here at Leeds, scientists found key...
Scientists reveal how first-in-class therapeutic drug treats cardiac disease at the molecular level
Researchers at the University of Leeds have uncovered exactly how the breakthrough cardiac therapeutic mavacamten works at a molecular level, providing critical new insight into how excessive heart muscle contraction can be safely regulated in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). In a study published in Science Advances, scientists from the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology and the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic...