Researchers from the University of Dundee have discovered a small molecule that helps to eliminate a Parkinson’s disease-causing protein.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting more than 10 million people worldwide. No cure is available and current treatment is limited to symptomatic management.

UFM1 is a ubiquitin-like protein conjugated to ribosomes and is important for secretory protein biogenesis and endoplasmic reticulum homeostasis. For this to occur, mature UFM1 must first be generated through the proteolytic removal of amino acids at the C-terminus of UFM1. However, the enzyme responsible for this process in humans has remained elusive.

Research published by the groups of MRC-PPU researchers Greg Findlay and Satpal Virdee reports a new method to shed light on how cell communication is disrupted in patients with certain forms of intellectual disability. These highly debilitating conditions affect 1-3% of the world’s population and most have no cure or treatment.

Dr. Mahima Swamy from the MRC PPU was awarded tenure last month and has also been successful in obtaining £560,000 from the Wellcome Trust as a 2-year extension to her Henry Dale Fellowship. Her research explores how immune cells resident in the gut respond to infection and protect the gut from disease.

The Medical Research Council has invested £200,000 in a new national network which will help scientists overcome barriers to working in interdisciplinary science

X-Net has been formed to bring together researchers spanning all career stages in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to facilitate the sharing of expertise and knowledge among its members.

Louise-Kristine Nielsen was awarded the prestigious Sir James Black Award for setting up workflows for analysing archival fixed clinical human tissue samples from the gut by mass-spectrometry during her Honours’ project in Esther Sammler’s lab in the MRC PPU. Additionally, she was recognized with prices for graduating as the best A-grade Honours student in both Biomedical and Neurosciences.

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 increase in proteasome abundance using yeast. This new study is now published in Nature Cell Biology.

Marc van Grieken, chair of the Dundee Research Interest Group (DRIG) gives powerful introduction to Randy Shekman’s public lecture: Parkinson’s disease: up, close and personal while Brendan Hawdon, DRIG secretary, leads lively Q&A session in 2022.

We are delighted that Jin Rui (Amos) Liang has opened his laboratory in the MRC PPU. Amos intends to identify and characterise other novel factors that regulate ERphagy. He will also explore the physiological roles of ERphagy and investigate how ERphagy is disrupted in diseases such as cancer.

The organisation Research.com recently published a list of the scientists working in the fields of Biology and Biochemistry with the highest Hirsch (H) Factors https://research.com/scientists-rankings/biology-and-biochemistry/gb.