Dr. Sjors Scheres, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, has been awarded the KNCV Gouden Medaille (Gold Medal) by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Chemische Vereniging (KNCV, Royal Dutch Chemical Society). The award was presented during the conference CHAINS 2015, taking place November 30 to December 2, 2015, in Veldhoven, The Netherlands.
The KNCV Gold Medal is the major Dutch chemistry prize, honoring researchers who have distinguished themselves in the field of chemical research in the broadest sense. Dr. Scheres is honored for his work on structure determination using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). He has developed software that allows researchers to obtain almost atomic level information about the structure of biomolecules, without a need to crystallize them. Producing crystals of, e.g., proteins can be difficult, but is usually necessary to determine their structure using X-ray crystallography.
Sjors Scheres studied chemistry at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, where he received his Ph.D. in protein crystallography. After post-doctoral research in the group of Jose-Maria Carazo, National Biotechnology Center, Madrid, Spain, he started his group at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, in 2010. His main interest is the development of new methods for high-resolution cryo-EM structure determination.
Selected Publications
- An atomic structure of human γ-secretase,
Xiao-chen Bai, Chuangye Yan, Guanghui Yang, Peilong Lu, Dan Ma, Linfeng Sun, Rui Zhou, Sjors H. W. Scheres, Yigong Shi,
Nature 2015, 525, 212–217.
DOI: 10.1038/nature14892 - Advances in Single-Particle Electron Cryomicroscopy Structure Determination applied to Sub-tomogram Averaging,
Tanmay A.M. Bharat, Christopher J. Russo, Jan Löwe, Lori A. Passmore, Sjors H.W. Scheres,
Structure 2015, 23, 1743–1753.
DOI: 10.1016/j.str.2015.06.026 - The architecture of the spliceosomal U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP,
Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen, Wojciech P. Galej, Xiao-chen Bai, Christos G. Savva, Andrew J. Newman, Sjors H. W. Scheres, Kiyoshi Nagai,
Nature 2015, 523, 47–52.
DOI: 10.1038/nature14548 - RELION: Implementation of a Bayesian approach to cryo-EM structure determination,
Sjors H.W. Scheres,
J. Struct. Biol. 2012, 180, 519–530.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsb.2012.09.006 - Disentangling conformational states of macromolecules in 3D-EM through likelihood optimization,
Sjors H W Scheres, Haixiao Gao, Mikel Valle, Gabor T Herman, Paul P B Eggermont, Joachim Frank, Jose-Maria Carazo,
Nat. Methods 2006, 4, 27–29.
DOI: 10.1038/NMETH992 - XMIPP: a new generation of an open-source image processing package for electron microscopy,
C.O.S. Sorzano, R. Marabini, J. Velázquez-Muriel, J.R. Bilbao-Castro, S.H.W. Scheres, J.M. Carazo, A. Pascual-Montano,
J. Struct. Biol. 2004, 148, 194–204.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsb.2004.06.006
Also of Interest
- Engaging a New Generation of Chemists,
Vera Koester,
ChemViews Mag. 2015.
DOI: 10.1002/chemv.201500013
J.-W. Toering, Director of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society, talks about his motivation, the Society’s challenges, his future plans for it - KNCV Gold Medal Awarded to Geert Kops,
ChemViews Mag. 2014.
Major Dutch prize presented to Geert Kops by the Royal Dutch Chemical Society
