Lori Anne Passmore is a Canadian/British cryo electron microscopist and

structural biologist Structural biology deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every level of organization. Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries we ...

who works at the Medical Research Council (MRC)

Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

(LMB) at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and development of new supports for cryo-EM.

Education

Lori Passmore graduated from the University of British Columbia, Canada in 1999. She obtained a PhD in 2003 from

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

for research supervised by

David Barford David Barford is a British medical researcher and structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK. Education Barford studied Biochemistry at the University of Bristol and then went on to earn a Doctor of Philosophy ...

at the

Institute of Cancer Research The Institute of Cancer Research (the ICR) is a public research institute and a member institution of the University of London in London, United Kingdom, specialising in oncology. It was founded in 1909 as a research department of the Royal Ma ...

. She performed ''in vitro'' biochemical characterisation of the activity of the

anaphase-promoting complex Anaphase-promoting complex (also called the cyclosome or APC/C) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that marks target cell cycle proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. The APC/C is a large complex of 11–13 subunit proteins, including a cullin ...

(APC) and used cryo-EM to study the APC structure.

Career and research

Passmore worked as a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

at the MRC-LMB. She worked with

Venki Ramakrishnan Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (born 1952) is a British-American structural biologist. He shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath for research on the structure and function of ribosomes. Since 1999, he has wo ...

and Richard Henderson, using cryo-EM to determine the structure of the eukaryotic ribosome bound to initiation factors. Passmore became a group leader at the MRC-LMB in 2009. Her group uses ''in vitro'' reconstitution, biochemical assays and cryo-EM to understand the function of multiprotein complexes that regulate gene expression at the level of mRNA. Her group has developed new sample grids for cryo-EM that reduce specimen movement during imaging. In collaboration with Ketan J. Patel, Passmore is also actively studying the molecular mechanisms underlying

Fanconi anemia Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare, autosomal recessive genetic disease characterized by aplastic anemia, congenital defects, endocrinological abnormalities, and an increased incidence of developing cancer. The study of Fanconi anemia has improve ...

Grants, awards and honours

* 2005 Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research * 2009 Fellow of

Clare Hall, Cambridge Clare Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1966 by Clare College, Clare Hall is a college for advanced study, admitting only postgraduate students alongside postdoctoral researchers and fellows. It was est ...

* 2010

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

(ERC) starting grant * 2015 EMBO Young Investigator Program * 2016

Suffrage Science award The Suffrage Science award is a prize for women in science, engineering and computing founded in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS). There are three categories of awar ...

* 2017 ERC consolidator grant * 2018 Member,

European Molecular Biology Organisation The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 2,100 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) * 2023 Elected

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Microscopists University of British Columbia alumni Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization {{Improve categories, date=January 2023 Fellows of the Royal Society