Professor Marina Kuimova FRSC
Winner: 2024 Corday-Morgan Mid-Career Prize for 91AV
Imperial College London
For the development of unique probes and methodologies in fluorescence imaging leading to an understanding of dynamic biological processes in living systems, pertinent to health and disease.
Celebrate Professor Marina Kuimova
Understanding aberrant protein aggregation is extremely important for health and for designing strategies for preventing or controlling neurodegenerative disease.
Molecules within a cell are packed together and take on different conformations. This packing arrangement plays a crucial role in how a cell functions, but measuring it directly, particularly in living cells, remains challenging.
Professor Kuimova’s research offers a non-invasive way to measure snapshots of microscopic viscosity in living cells. For example, it is possible to measure how lipids in cell membranes or a cell’s structure changes as a result of disease or medical treatment. Another application is monitoring how DNA changes its shape: it can unwind from a classic double helix into rarer structures called G-quadruplexes, which are thought to be important for DNA replication and cancer development. These measurements are possible thanks to the development of ‘molecular rotors’, small fluorescent molecules that light up when their internal movement is restricted due to crowding or when they bind to DNA. This research helps us understand how molecular packing and conformation affect drug movement within living cells, which has potential applications in drug development and diagnosing diseases, particularly cancer and neurodegenerative conditions. Professor Kuimova’s research can also be applied to other scientific fields, like atmospheric and materials sciences, where using microscopic viscometers to measure aerosol viscosity and temperature will aid climate change studies.
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