Key Advances
The LMB has remained at the forefront of molecular biology since our beginnings in the 1940s, pioneering new techniques and making world-changing discoveries about how life works. Here we highlight nine of these landmark scientific advances.
Explore our history timeline to see how further LMB ideas, discoveries and inventions have progressed science for over 60 years.
Molecular understanding of neurodegeneration
discovery of disease-specific filaments
First complete ‘connectomes’
revealing the wiring map of brains
Electron cryomicroscopy
accelerating drug development
Structure of the ribosome
informing the design of new antibiotics
Monoclonal antibodies
providing targeted therapies for disease
Tomography
enabling the development of CT scanners
DNA sequencing
unlocking the human genome
First atomic protein structure
enabling structure-based drug design
Structure of DNA
initiating the molecular biology revolution