leader cryo-em computational software-dev
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology / MRC-LMB
Info
Group Leader in the Structural Studies Division at the MRC-LMB, Cambridge. Develops and maintains RELION, the open-source cryo-EM image processing package used by laboratories worldwide for atomic-resolution structure determination. Current research focuses on the structural biology of neurodegeneration: how amyloid filaments form in the brain and relate to disease. The group has resolved over 20 distinct tau conformations across different tauopathies, demonstrating that a single protein can adopt many amyloid structures.
wwPDB role
Advisory Committee member, EMDB representative. Brings the RELION user community and the cryo-EM validation perspective to wwPDB governance.
Affiliations
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology — Group Leader, Structural Studies Division
Committees & service
- wwPDB Advisory Committee — EMDB representative
Key Relationships
- Close collaboration with Michel Goedert (MRC-LMB) on tau and alpha-synuclein amyloid structures in neurodegenerative disease
- Current group members include Kiarash Jamali (ML tools for cryo-EM), Alexey Murzin, Sofia Lövestam, Bogdan Toader, Chloe Fisher, Simon Knoblauch, Vinith Kishore, Kai Yi, and Dongqi Zhang
- Takanori Nakane (former group member, RELION-3 developer)
Software
- RELION — primary author; de facto standard for single-particle cryo-EM image processing
Sources
- MRC-LMB profile: https://mrclmb.ac.uk/research-leaders/sjors-scheres/
- wwPDB 2025 Advisory Committee report: https://cdn.rcsb.org/wwpdb/docs/about/advisory/wwpdbac2025-report.pdf