Nobel Prize winner on campus

One of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was visiting the University of Leicester campus - on the day of the announcement of the winners was made.

Richard Henderson, from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, is one of three scientists to win the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering work to visualise biological molecules. Richard will share the Prize with Jacques Dubochet and Joachim Frank.

They developed a technique called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), which simplifies the process for looking at the machinery of life.

Speaking at the University of Leicester where he was addressing a conference, Richard Henderson- who is Chair of the Leicester Institute for Structural and Chemical Biology Advisory Board - said: “It is particularly good timing that this announcement should coincide with my visit to Leicester to speak at Leicester’s conference 'Frontiers In Cryo-Electron Microscopy', probably the only cryo-EM conference happening at the moment… and also the inauguration of the MRC - Toxicology Unit’s TALOS instrument and the announcement of MRC funding for the FEI Titan Krios in LISCB.”