Wellcome Discovery Awards reinforce Leeds as leader in biological research

The new awards will provide £3.4 million to support research into life at the molecular level.

The awards are also a reflection of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology’s reputation for interdisciplinary research and infrastructure. The newly funded teams will benefit from the advanced cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) capabilities housed in the Astbury Biostructure Laboratory, which were made possible through major investment from the University of Leeds and Wellcome.

The two new Wellcome projects will support joint research led by Professor Sheena Radford and Professor Neil Ranson, as well as a project by Professor Elton Zeqiraj in collaboration with Professor Liz Miller and Professor Yogesh Kulathu at the University of Dundee.

Professors Radford and Ranson will investigate amyloid fibrils, protein structures found in the brain and other tissues that are linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes. Their six-year project aims to uncover how these fibrils form and interact with cells, using some of the most advanced imaging and biochemical techniques available.

Professor Radford said: “We’ll identify new pathways, develop dyes that can distinguish between fibril types and recreate disease-linked structures in the lab.”

Professor Ranson added, “It is an incredibly exciting project that could deepen our understanding of how these proteins behave and misbehave, and help to inform when, who and how to treat.”

Professor Zeqiraj, who currently holds a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship, will embark on a seven-and-a-half-year project to explore how cells rescue stalled ribosomes, the molecular machines responsible for making proteins.

Working with partners in Dundee, the team will use Leeds’ world-class cryo-electron microscopy facilities to capture images of ribosomes, providing new insights into how they recover from stress and what happens when these systems fail in disease.

Professor Zeqiraj said, “By bringing advanced imaging and structural biology to the heart of this project, we will visualise the ER-RQC machinery by electron microscopy and explore these quality-control pathways in action.

This builds on our strengths in mechanism and structural biology, and I’m thrilled to continue our close collaboration with colleagues in Dundee as we connect molecular insight to cellular physiology and, ultimately, to new therapeutic opportunities.”