Research.

The Crosby Lab is a research group based within the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

We live on a rotating planet. As a result of evolving within this rhythmic day-night environment, organisms on Earth have developed their own internal biological 'clock' that allows them to anticipate daily external events. These 'circadian rhythms' control almost all mammalian biology, from cell division to metabolism. Our lab uses a combination of cell biology, biophysics and structural biology to understand how these rhythms are regulated at the cellular level.

How are circadian rhythms controlled at the molecular level?

In mammals, circadian rhythms are regulated by the formation of a series of macromolecular proteins complexes that drive daily rhythms in transcription. By studying these proteins both in cells and in vitro, we can begin to tease apart how these proteins interact to achieve such precise regulation of cellular processes.

How do circadian rhythms align with the outside world?

There is no point in having an internal clock that thinks its a totally different time to the time in the outside world. For a circadian rhythm to be useful, it therefore needs to align its timing to specific external events, particularly when we see light and when we eat food. A major focus of our lab is elucidating how these events are integrated by the core circadian protein machinery.

Circadian rhythms in other organisms

While the lab primarily focusses on circadian rhythms in mammals, we also collaborate with other groups to understand how circadian rhythms work across biological kingdoms. This ranges from plants to algae to cyanobacteria. They all have rhythms!