News

October 2011	Biochemical Journal Paper for Kurz Group An article published by SCILLS researchers in the Biochemical Journal reports the finding that the cancer drug Bortezomib may elicit some of its anti-cancer effects by a process called "atypical neddylation" (Hjerpe R. et al. Biochem J. 2011 Oct 17).
October 2011	Arno Alpi awarded prize for Best Poster at International Conference SCILLS Programme Leader, Arno Alpi, received an award for Best Poster at the EMBO Conference "Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-like Modifers: from functional modules to systems biology", held in Dubrovnik in September, for his poster entitled: "A UBC fold in the FANCL RING ligase binds ubiquitin to mediate FANCD2 monoubiquitylation".
September 2011	SCILLS Programme Leaders named as highly cited scientists in Protein Research The September 14th 2011 issue of Lab Times has published citation data for the period 1998-2009 in the field of "Protein Research". SCILLS Programme Leaders Philip Cohen and Dario Alessi were named as the 8th and 13th most cited European scientists in the list with 16,244 and 14,431 citations, respectively for papers published between 1998 and 2009.
July 2011	New Director for the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit and SCILLS Appointed Professor Dario Alessi FRS, FRSE , has been appointed director of the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee. He will succeed the current director, Professor Sir Philip Cohen, in April 2012.
May 2011	Alban Ordureau is awarded a PhD Alban Ordureau, a graduate student working in Philip Cohen's laboratory, was awarded his PhD on 23 May 2011 for a thesis entitled, "An investigation of the role of E3 ubiquitin ligases in regulating innate immunity".
May 2011	SCILLS scientists discover link between polyubiquitylation and autoimmunity Scientists in the SCottish Institute for ceLL Signalling (SCILLS) have discovered that a polyubiquitin-binding protein called ABIN1 plays a key role in preventing autoimmune disease and their findings will be published on-line on 23 May 2011 in the June 6th issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
April 2011	New Programme Leader Appointed Satpal Virdee, an MRC Career Development Fellow currently working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at Cambridge, UK has been appointed to a Programme Leader position in SCILLS.
March 2011	Ron Hay awarded the Novartis Medal Ron Hay, a Programme Leader in the Protein Ubiquitylation Unit of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signalling (SCILLS), has been awarded the 2012 Novartis Medal and Prize of The Biochemical Society in recognition of his pioneering research on the ubiquitin-like modifier SUMO.
January 2011	Craig MacKay wins the Howard Elder Prize Craig MacKay, a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the SCILLS, has been awarded the 2010 Howard Elder Prize for his discovery of the FAN1 nuclease that acts as a “molecular scissors” during DNA repair (MacKay et al, Cell 142, 65-76), which was made whilst he was a PhD Student in the lab of John Rouse, in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit.