Originally a physicist from Edinburgh, Richard started in protein crystallography in 1966 when he was a PhD student working with David Blow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on the structure of chymotrypsin, which in 1967 was one of the first ever protein structures determined. As a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow at Yale, he characterised biochemically the voltage-dependent sodium channels from nerve membranes. In 1975 and back at LMB, he determined the first ever 3D structure of a membrane protein, bacteriorhodopsin. He then developed the methods for electron crystallography of 2D crystals, and used them to obtain the atomic structure of bacteriorhodopsin in 1990. He served as Joint-Head of the Structural Studies Division at LMB (1986-2000) and Director (1996-2006), while developing an interest in G-protein-coupled receptors and single particle electron microscopy. He is a fellow of the Royal Society (1983), a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (1996), and has been awarded several prizes for his work (Willam Bate Hardy, Ernst Ruska, Rosensteil, Louis Jeantet and Gregori Aminoff).

Greg is Deputy Director of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences in 1973, and after a PhD and postdoctoral work at the LMB on protein and nucleic acid technologies, pioneered the field of enzyme engineering in the early 1980s (in collaboration with Alan Fersht), and the field of antibody engineering in the late 1980s and 1990s. He is a prolific inventor and developed technologies for making humanized and later human antibodies for treatment of human diseases. He co-founded two antibody companies: Cambridge Antibody Technology (acquired by Astra-Zeneca), and Domantis (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline). He has received numerous academic prizes and also consulted for a range of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Chris obtained his PhD from the University of Bristol (1989) and then moved to the University of Cambridge (Dept of Biochemistry) to work on a unique 10-helix sugar transporter, RhaT. After obtaining a research fellowship at Girton College (Cambridge) he moved to the LMB to work in Richard Henderson's group on the serotonin transporter where he showed the role of N-glycosylation and the chaperone calnexin was important for protein folding. Chris then worked on the E. coli multidrug transporter EmrE and obtained both 2D and 3D crystals as well as a 3D crystal structure using cryo-EM.

Stefan has a Chemistry degree from the University of Marburg (Germany) and a PhD from the Karolinska Institute (Sweden). Between 1999 and 2004 Stefan worked for Pharmacia. Stefan is now the Head of the Phosphorylation-dependent signalling group at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) hosted by Oxford University (http://www.sgc.ox.ac.uk). The SGC commenced its operations in July 2004 and solved the structures of more than 450 structures of proteins relevant to human health and disease during its first phase of its operation (2004-2007). These proteins represent approximately one fifth of all new human protein structures determined worldwide during the last three years. Research activities of his group are focussed on the functional characterisation and structure determination of human kinases, phosphatases and other signalling molecules with the goal to understand the molecular mechanisms that lead to regulation of signal transduction cascades and the developing of specific inhibitors. So far the group has released high-resolution structures of 25 human kinases and of more than 80 signalling molecules.

Ed qualified in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge in 1968, and went on to obtain a PhD in 1971. After a post-doctoral position at the University of Strathclyde he joined the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in 1974 to work on muscarinic acetylcholine receptors under the leadership of Sir Arnold Burgen. With his colleague Nigel Birdsall, Ed pursued the early development of radioligand binding studies, which helped to establish the existence of a family of G-protein-coupled receptors. A highlight of the group’s research was to demonstrate definitively the existence of subclasses of muscarinic receptors, a finding later confirmed by molecular biology. Now a senior scientist and group leader at NIMR, Ed has continued to work on the molecular details of muscarinic binding and signalling using protein chemistry, systematic mutagenesis and molecular modelling, to build up a detailed map of the binding site of the M1 subtype, and of the amino acids and their interactions that participate in the signal transduction mechanism. Recently, he has been investigating the mechanism of action of novel selective agonists and pursuing crystallographic studies on M1 muscarinic receptors, hoping, eventually to see the atoms.

Graeme is Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at University of Glasgow where he has been based since 1986. His interests centre on the structure, function, regulation and pharmacology of G-protein-coupled receptors, G proteins and their interacting proteins (see. here for further details). In concert with understanding fundamental mechanisms his work has a strong focus on the translation of basic research into the development of novel, high-throughput screening strategies for drug discovery.

Gebhard was born in Austria and studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. From 1984-1989 he did a PhD at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany. Major fields of study were in molecular biology, biophysics, and biochemistry of membrane proteins and membrane protein crystallisation. He switched to the field of G-protein-coupled receptors as a Research Associate in the Department of Structural Studies at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1989. After an intermediate position as a staff scientist at the MRC in Cambridge, he became a group leader in 1999, and he has made major contributions to the structure of visual pigments and GPCRs using electron microscopy and high-brilliance x-ray diffraction methods. From 3D electron microscopy data he deduced the first experimental template for the seven helices of GPCRs. Together with Brian Kobilka from Stanford University, Gebhard solved the first structure of a human beta 2 adrenergic receptor.

Jon has more than 27 years research experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He started his career as a medicinal chemist, then after five years took up the challenge of computer-assisted drug design, building and leading teams that use in silico design and structural biology to impact drug discovery projects. He is currently a Divisional Director at Lundbeck Research Denmark, responsible for the departments of Early Lead Generation (Chemistry) and Computational Chemistry. From 2001-2006 he was Executive Director at Pfizer UK (MISD: Computational Chemistry, Structural Biology, Medicinal Informatics & Knowledge Discovery); from 1997-2001, he was Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb in the US (Structural Biology & Modeling) and at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (now Sanofi-Aventis) in the UK, France and US previous to this, as a medicinal chemist then building and leading CADD (Computer-Assisted Drug Design) teams. He has an international reputation in the CADD area, and has pioneered the use of 3D pharmacophore fingerprint methods for both ligand and protein targets to address many drug discovery needs.

Patrick Humphrey graduated from the School of Pharmacy, University of London, in 1968, with a strong interest in drug receptor theory. After obtaining a PhD in pharmacology at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, he joined Allen and Hanburys, at Ware, U.K., to initiate a project on migraine. His work on cerebrovascular pharmacology led directly to the development of sumatriptan, the prototype of a new drug class for the treatment of migraine. During this time, he became the Director of the Glaxo Division of Pharmacology that was not only instrumental in the discovery of sumatriptan, but also naratriptan, alosetron, ondansetron, vapiprost and salmeterol. Patrick Humphrey has received a number of important academic honours, including an honorary professorship from the University of Cambridge, as well as the Royal Society’s Mullard medal. In 1999, he was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for “services to migraine research”. He maintains a passion for research aimed at drug discovery and was latterly the Head of Research at Theravance in South San Francisco from 2001 to January 2008. He has about 300 published scientific papers and book chapters to his name and was ranked 4th in the list of total literature citations in Pharmacology and Toxicology from 1994-2004.

Jonathan A. Javitch obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He completed the joint M.D.-Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where as a graduate student with Solomon Snyder he demonstrated that a key step in the neurotoxicity of MPTP is the uptake of its metabolite MPP+ by the dopamine transporter. Dr. Javitch completed a medical internship and psychiatric residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He did postdoctoral work on the structure of dopamine receptors with Dr. Arthur Karlin at Columbia University. Dr. Javitch is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology in the Center for Molecular Recognition and in Physiology and Cellular Biophysics and Scientific Director of the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia Research and Treatment at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director of the Division of Molecular Therapeutics at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. His laboratory focuses on understanding the structure, function, and regulation of G-protein coupled receptors and neurotransmitter transporters using molecular biological, biochemical and biophysical approaches.

David Brown, Ph.D., FRSC, Senior Advisor, has over 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry both in research and in senior executive roles. He served with 4 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies: Zeneca, Pfizer, Glaxo, and most recently with F. Hoffman La-Roche as Global Head of Drug Discovery, Roche Pharma. In this role he had responsibility for the out put of clinical candidate drugs from approximately 200 scientists across Roche’s 5 research sites. Dr. Brown has extensive experience of pharmaceutical R&D in all phases from early discovery through clinical trials, and he has experience of leading research in all major disease areas. While at Pfizer he was named co-inventor of the patent for Viagra, and he led the team that developed Viagra through to proof of concept (clinical efficacy) in man. At Roche, Dr. Brown also served on the committee responsible for clinical drug development and he was core member of the Business Development Committee responsible for in-licensing of products and for technology agreements and acquisitions. He has also been President and CEO of biotechnology company Cellzome AG. He is now Chair of Babraham Biotechnology, Chair of Amura Ltd, and he serves also as a consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Dr. Brown received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Bristol. He is an Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Drug Discovery and Development, and is author of more than 50 primary and review publications and patents.