Professor Randy Read

I was born in Canada and studied Biochemistry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, specialising in protein crystallography for my PhD. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, I returned to the University of Alberta to take up my first faculty position in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In 1998 I moved to Cambridge to join the new Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, supported by a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship.

Project/study information 

The three-dimensional structure of a protein can be determined primarily using two techniques termed X ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy. This information provides vital insights into how a protein functions and how it is controlled by other factors in the cell. Our goal is to develop new improvements to these techniques, including the use of new software and computer modelling approaches, to allow more challenging structures to be elucidated. The techniques we are developing contribute to understanding the structures of proteins that affect disease development.