News

06.05.21 Professors Julie Ahringer and Ben Simons elected as Fellows of the Royal Society

5 May 2021

The Gurdon Institute is proud to announce that two group leaders have today been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society. Professor Julie Ahringer Julie Ahringer (above right) has made wide-ranging contributions to molecular genetics through her work on the nematode C. elegans . She carried out the first systematic...

12.04.21 Simons lab and collaborators in Japan restore fertility in mice using insights into clonal fate of transplanted sperm stem cells

28 April 2021

By defining the dynamics of spermatogonial stem cells following transplantation into mouse testis, the Simons lab and collaborators in Okazaki show how repopulation efficiency can be increased to a level at which the fertility of infertile hosts is restored . Transient suppression of transplanted spermatogonial stem cell...

crystal structure of METTL3/14 in complex with inhibitor

26.04.21 Kouzarides and colleagues provide proof of concept for targeting RNA-modifying enzymes as an anti-cancer strategy

26 April 2021

Tony Kouzarides and colleagues at STORM Therapeutics and the Milner Therapeutics Institute have identified a drug-like molecule that can inhibit an enzyme, METTL3, that plays a key role in the blood cancer, acute myeloid leukaemia. METTL3 is an RNA-modifying enzyme, and this study is the first time an RNA-modification...

16.03.21 Tracing cell fate in developing mouse cortex suggests lineage origin of brain tumours

3 April 2021

Tracing the fate of sister cells in the developing mouse cortex, the Simons lab and collaborators in Beijing uncover the cellular dynamics during gliogenesis, defining a stereotypic phase of astrocyte and oligodendrocyte production. These results suggest the cellular and lineage origin of primary brain tumour

25.03.21 Cancer-associated variants of DNA polymerase ϵ can drive ultra-mutagenesis

30 March 2021

The Jackson lab, with collaborators at the Sanger Institute and University of Gothenburg, carried out studies in yeast showing that cancer-associated variants of DNA polymerase ϵ can lead to ultra-mutagenesis, giving insight into how these mechanisms may operate in cancer cells.

01.03.21 St Johnston lab identifies RhoGAP19D as a new lateral polarity factor

18 March 2021

Using Drosophila egg chamber follicular cells as a model system, the St Johnston lab analysed the roles of Cdc42GAPs in epithelial polarity, and identified RhoGAP19D as the one that restricts active Cdc42 to the apical domain. The absence of RhoGAP19D leads to a phenotype that mimics the early steps of carcinoma formation

18.03.21 Filopodial dynamics emerges from diverse combinations of proteins

18 March 2021

The Gallop lab tracked and measured filopodia and actin regulators in both in vivo and in vitro systems, and by incorporating theoretical modelling with Simons lab colleagues, identified a simple theory that explains how diverse combinations of tip complex proteins give rise to filopodia

09.02.21 Pig primordial germ cells show epigenetic programme that mimics equivalent human cells in vitro

11 February 2021

The Surani lab, with collaborators in the Alberio lab at University of Nottingham, show that pig PGCs undergo a transcriptional programme and epigenetic remodelling that closely follows that in the human germline. The pig PGCs could therefore provide a valuable model to validate the findings on human PGCs that are difficult to investigate in our species

03.02.21 New insights into biogenesis of PIWI-interacting RNAs

9 February 2021

Berkyurek at al. in the Miska lab show how the piRNA pathway co-opts the ancient machinery of RNA polymerase II for both biogenesis and gene silencing activity

05.01.21 An extended role for the 'S-phase checkpoint' in regulating DNA replication

6 January 2021

This Elife publication by Johnson et al. redefines the scope of the 'S-phase checkpoint' with implications for understanding checkpoint function in cancers that lack cell cycle controls.