am privileged to be the head of the Molecular Medicine section of NHLI at Imperial College in South Kensington. The Section consists of a dynamic group of about 75 scientists exploring a variety of biological systems, using basic science techniques such as molecular biology, cell cultures, animal models and fluorescence and electron microscopy. I have great interest in new biophysical approaches. Improvements and developments in fluorescence microscopies make it possible to visualize the nanoscale. For example, measurements can be made of changes in the orientation of protein complexes, such as the orientation of kinesin during its walking along microtubules. The Section comprises a state-of-the-art fully staffed microscopy facility headed by Professor Tony Magee with five confocal microscopes and two advanced wide-field systems: the Facility for Imaging by Light Microscopy (FILM). My main interest is the understanding of the molecular mechanism of movement in biological systems. Since muscle is an organ specialised in the achievement of movement, we study the biophysics and biochemistry of muscle fibres using permeabilised muscle fibres from a variety of sources, caged-compounds, fluorescent reporter probes, low angle X-ray diffraction at ESRF or Diamond, and FLIM (Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy). Currently, (April 2010), the team in the Muscle Biophysics lab comprises: Drs Dmitry Ushakov, Petr Vikhorev, WeiHua Song, Valentina Caorsi, one PhD student, Ms Catherine Mansfield, one M.Sc. student, Ms. Niovi Setta-Kaffetzi, and one Project student, Mr. Christopher Toepfer who will start his Ph.D. in the lab in October 2010. Mr Daniel Moore is our mechanical engineer. Drs Andrey Tsaturyan, Sergey Bershitsky and Natalia Koubassova are also frequent visitors in the lab.

biological systems, Lung disorders