The Landsberg Lab

1 Aug, 2017

Our latest paper was published overnight in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. The work is the result of a productive collaboration with our neighbours in the Kobe Lab and Ed Egelman at the University of Virginia and describes the structure of a filamentous assembly formed by proteins involved in immune signalling through the cell surface receptor TLR4. A link to the paper is available on our publications page.

27 Jul, 2017

July has been a busy month for new arrivals. We welcomed our new (and first official!) postdoc Irene Chassagnon to the lab. Irene has plenty of experience in membrane protein crystallography and we are looking forward to seeing what she can do with an electron microscope! Alan Munn also joins us on sabbatical for the second half of the year while the start of semester 2 sees the arrival of our new Honours student Clancy and Undergraduate trainee Matt. Welcome everyone!

5 Jul, 2017

Michael represented our lab at the recent relaunch of Griffith Insitute for Drug Discovery. Premier of Queensland Annastacia Palaszczuk spoke at the event and was excited not only about the future for GRIDD but also for science and innovation in Queensland.

12 Jun, 2017

Michael is presenting this week at the Vizbi 2017 meeting, a unique conference on visualising biological data that will be held outside Europe and the USA for the first time in Sydney. The meeting is being run in conjunction with the Vivid Festival of Lights, Music and Ideas and brings together scientists, artists and communicators for an exciting week of science, albeit viewed a little differently to what we are used to. 

25 Jul, 2017

Congratulations to Gamma who recently received conformation of his PhD conferral. Gamma has since started a postdoc at Oxford University STRUBI but was back in Australia recently for a quick visit that included the not insignificant milestone of becoming engaged to part-time Landsberg Lab member Jannah! Jannah also recently submitted her own PhD thesis and will soon follow Gamma back to the UK to take up a postdoc position at Bristol Unviersity. Plenty to celebrate then!

9 Jul, 2017

Members of the lab attended the bienneial East Coast Protein Meeting at Coffs Harbour. It was again a fantastic meeting and we are already looking forward to the next one in 2 years time! Lou and Sarah both gave great talks and Andrew and Joseph's posters attracted lots of visitors and vibrant discussion. Congratulations to Sarah for taking out the best oral presentation prize!

15 Feb, 2017

Congratulations to Lou who is the first author on the latest paper to come out of the lab.  The paper is the result of an exciting new collaboration with Frank Sainsbury at the AIBN, who is using VLPs derived from Bluetongue virus as therapeutic delivery vectors.  The paper is getting plenty of media attention (see our Media Coverage page for links).

10 Feb, 2017

A busy February for the lab with members attending the 42nd Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function.  Sarah came away with a poster prize for her work while Lou and Jannah also presented posters and Michael was upgraded from the lightning session to a full speaker slot in the final session, presenting in front of a packed house that was eagerly awaiting the prize announcement of prize winners at the end of the session.

Members of the lab also attended a workshop on Cryo-EM and Single Particle Analysis hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging and EMBL Australia.  Both meetings were very rewarding and enjoyable.

24 Jan, 2017

So whaddaya know?  Check out Michael's new review article (co-authored with Joel Mackay, Charlie Bond and Andrew Whitten) for a guide to everything you may (or may not) know about uncertainties in structure determination techniques.  It's accessible from our Publications page and is free to download for the first 50 days. 

23 Jan, 2017

A big welcome to new PhD student Joseph Box who commenced in our group today.  Aside from a keen interest in learning cryo-EM and bionformatics, Joseph is also a former chef and we are all looking forward to seeing what he can cook up for the next lab lunch.

26 Oct, 2016

Today is the last day for two members of the group who become the first two official alumni of the Landsberg Group.  Gamma recently submitted his PhD thesis and heads to the UK where he will take up a postdoctoral position at the University of Oxford.  Callum recently completed his Honours studies and will embark on an extended vacation in Europe before deciding on further study options.  We are sorry to see them both go but know that exciting times lie ahead and wish them all the best!

Oct 19, 2016

Michael was invited to attend the launch of the University of Wollongong's Molecular Horizons initiative at Parliament House in Canberra.  The exciting new research centre set to open in 2019 will have a major focus on cryo-EM.  The Prime Minister of Australia spoke at the launch and his remarks are archived here.  

Oct 17, 2016

Michael contributed to a paper that was today accepted for publication in Nucleic Acids Research.  The paper looks at the structural basis of a mechanism by which a single residue point mutation results in promiscous binding of DNA sequences by a zinc finger nuclease.  The paper can be accessed from our Publications page. 

Oct 7, 2016

Members of the lab this week attended the national ComBio meeting - a combined meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Societies for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Plant Sciences.  Michael and Sarah were both selected for oral presentations and Lou presented a poster. 

Jul 25, 2016

The lab welcomed three new undergraduate students for the coming semester.  Clancy Lott (SCIE3261), Emma Whittle (PHYS3900) and Zihan Zhou (BIPH3001) will complete their undergraduate research projects in the lab over the next 12 weeks.  Welcome aboard!

Jul 20, 2016

Members of the lab have spent the last 3 days in the beautiful Springbrook National Park.  In between bushwalks and board games, there was plenty of time to talk about science and learn about the interesting work our colleagues in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences' Structral Biology and Biochemistry theme, while also sharing our latest research with them.

Jul 6, 2016

Congratulations are in order for Callum who today received his final mark for his Honours year and was awarded First Class! Callum is the first person to graduate from the lab since our move to the SCMB at UQ, a worthy milestone at the end of a year of hard work. Well done!

Feb 26, 2016

A double dose of news today with Sarah passing her first milestone and now officially confirmed as a PhD student in the lab.  It was also made official today that the lab will soon be relocating to the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, where we will also become part of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre.

Sep 4, 2015

The long anticipated installation of a new camera for the UQ cryo-EM facility was finalised today.  The Gatan K2 direct detection device (DDD), which has largely underpinned the current "resolution revolution" in cryo-EM was jointly funded at a cost of almost $1 million by the Australian Research Council, the Universities of Queensland and Sydney and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute through a LIEF grant to Michael and a team of 6 collaborating scientists. We are now looking forward to many long days and nights collecting data with our new setup!

July 31, 2015

ECPM15 was lots of fund and a rewarding meeting for all involved.  Sarah and Janina (Hankamer lab) gave great talks and Lou, Gamma and Alex all presented very nice posters which generated a lot of interest and discussion.  Congratulations to Sarah who won a student travel award sponsored by Bruker!  Everyone is already looking forward to the next meeting in 2017.

May 14, 2015

We are helping to organise the 2015 edition of the Sydney Protein Group and Queensland Protein Group joint meeting - the East Coast Protein Meeting.  Recent meetings have been a tremendously successful scientifically and also very enjoyable.  If you are interested in finding out more, check out the conference website which was launched today.

April 28, 2015

Congratulations to former honorary lab member Anne Sawyer.  As an Honours student in the lab, Anne started investigating the structure of a prototypical NAB1 protein from algae.  Her research interests diversified as a PhD student with Prof. Ben Hankamer, but she continued to pursue the structure of NAB1 in parallel and her efforts finally culminated in a first author paper in Biochemical Journal, published online today.  The paper can be acessed from our Publications page. 

December 17, 2014

Congratulations to Sarah Piper who received her student visa today and will officially join the lab to commence her PhD studies in the New Year. Sarah will work on a joint project with IMB's Prof. Glenn King looking at molecular targets for new bioinsecticides.

July 29, 2014

A very limited number of places are available for the inaugural Brisbane Workshop on 3D Image Processing with EMAN2.  The online registration portal can be accessed here and further details of the workshop are available in the document found here.

April 23, 2014

Today Alex resubmitted his corrected PhD thesis, following receipt of his examiners reports.  Good luck with navigating the final stages of your PhD Alex!

April 17, 2014

Congratulations to Lou who was today awarded a fully funded position as a student of the Australian Synchrotron SAXS workshop and at the Bilateral Australian-Italian Workshop on Photon and Neutron Applications to the Study of Biological and Nanoscale Systems.  Both meetings will be held in Melbourne in May. 

February 21, 2014

Congratulations to Anne, who submitted her PhD thesis today investigating regulatory mechanism of Light Harvesting Complex (LHC) genes in photosynthetic green microalage. Anne is now off to Europe for a well deserved break, and to scout potential postdoc labs.

Belated congratulations also to Drew, who had his PhD formally conferred at the December 2013 graduation ceremony at UQ and Intan who submitted her PhD thesis in January.  It's certainly been a busy and succesful start to the year for PhD students!

December 1, 2013

Our bioinsecticide work has been featured in the latest issue of the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility (AMMRF)'s quarterly newsletter.  You can access it (along with other newsletters that have featured our work) from the Publications page. 

November 7, 2013

The 4th Annual Chemistry and Structural Biology was held today at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and it was a very successful meeting for our team.  Michael's 15 minute talk was chosen for a speaker prize while Anne also received a prize for her "rapid fire" talk and Gamma received a prize for his poster.  All in all, a very successful and enjoyable meeting! 

December 15, 2013

Congratulations (and welcome!) to Lou Brillault.  After working as a Research Assistant with Prof. Ben Hankamer for the past 12 months, Lou decided to apply for a PhD project in the lab and was today advised that he has been awarded a UQ International Scholarship.  Lou will commence his PhD project in January.

August 5, 2013

Very exciting news from the lab today with a paper coming out overnight in Nature.  The work is the latest in a series of papers to be published as part of a very successful collaboration with the groups of Drs Mark Hurst and Shaun Lott at AgResearch and the University of Auckland, respectively.  A link to the article can be accessed via Publications in the menu bar. 

July 17, 2013

This weekend will see the 2013 edition of the biennial East Coast Protein Meeting held at Opal Cove Resort Coffs Harbour.  Anne, Gamma and Michael will be presenting posters at the meeting, along with Sarah, a visitor in the Hankamer lab from Bielefeld University.  Michael will also chair a symposium session with the theme "Protein Complexes" on Sunday morning.

July 12, 2013

Our invited review article on mechanosensitive ion channels to be published in Antioxidants and Redox Signalling has been made available online. You can access the manuscript via the publisher's website here.

June 7, 2013

Jannah Jeong today received her offer of an APA scholarship to fund her PhD in the Kobe lab at UQ. Michael will be an associate supervisor for Jannah's project, which will be focused on structural characterisation of a mammalian multi-enzyme complex that is upregulated in stimulated macrophages.

March 21, 2013

Good news from Drew today, who after a long hard slog submitted his PhD thesis for examination.  With a Nature Physics paper already under his belt and a nice basis for a forthcoming review article, we expect Drew will pass with flying colours.  Congratulations!