David Campbell, head of the MRC PPU’s Mass Spectrometry Facility, is retiring 34 years after joining Philip Cohen’s lab as a postdoc in 1984. …more

Missense mutations that induce hyper-activation of the LRRK2 protein kinase cause autosomal dominant Parkinson’s disease. LRRK2 phosphorylates a subgroup of Rab GTPases within their Switch-II effector binding motifs that impacts on their ability to associate with critical effectors.

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Following his recent Senior Investigator Award of £2.3million from the Wellcome Trust, Philip Cohen has now been awarded a new Programme Grant of £1.6 million from the Medical Research Council.

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New research by Greg Findlay’s group in the MRC PPU has made progress in understanding the fundamentals of intellectual disability, a developmental disorder thought to affect 1-2% of the world’s population.

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The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) has awarded MRC PPU Director Dario Alessi the 2018 MJFF Langston Award for “service and dedication to our shared goals of advancing Parkinson's understanding and therapeutic development”. For further information see here.

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Dr Virdee and colleagues in the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC PPU) have discovered a novel class of E3 ligase. The E3 ligase, MYCBP2, operates in a unique way, selectively transferring ubiquitin to non-lysine amino acids with selectivity for threonine.

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Local fundraiser Marc van Grieken so enjoyed his recent visit to the MRC PPU he returned this week, bringing friends and family along with him to learn more about our ongoing research into Parkinson's disease.

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Ever wondered what the inside of a lab looks like? We’ll be hosting an open day on Saturday 16 June so please join us to explore the world of medical research.

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In a paper just published in Molecular Cell, Dominka Kwasna from Yogesh Kulathu’s group at the MRC PPU, in collaboration with Ian Gibbs-Seymour at the University of Oxford, reports the discovery of a completely new class of enzymes that is important for protecting the cell’s DNA from damage.

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The Wnt signalling pathway plays fundamental roles in shaping developing embryos and controlling cell fate in adults. Mutations that cause slight alterations in Wnt signalling are associated with developmental defects as well as a myriad of diseases, such as cancer.

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