Kelly Nguyen, Group Leader in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, has been announced as one of the 2025 recipients of the prestigious Lister Institute Research Prize. The award seeks to recognise and support early-career scientists who have recently launched their own research groups. From around 100 applications each year, the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine awards up to six awards after an extensive review and interview process. Each winner is invited to present a Lister Prize Lecture to outline their field of research.
Kelly commented: “It is a tremendous honour for me and my group to receive the Lister Prize this year. This award will enable us to explore new research directions and push the frontiers of telomere biology and beyond. I’m also thrilled by the opportunity to connect with a diverse community of scientists, which I believe will spark exciting collaborations and novel lines of inquiry in our lab.”
Kelly’s research is focussed on better understanding the structure and maintenance of telomeres, protective nucleoproteins which cap the ends of chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. She also investigates the molecular basis by which the enzyme telomerase rebuilds telomeres which are lost during genome replication. This topic has clear clinical implications as the loss of telomeres is associated with ageing and several health conditions including cancers.
Her group’s research has resulted in several breakthroughs, including the first atomic model of human telomerase, which revealed a previously unknown histone dimer as novel subunits and identified a hotspot of premature ageing disease mutations. Her group has used electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) to determine how part of the protein complex shelterin recruits and activates telomerase to extend telomere ends and how shelterin is able to modulate telomeric nucleosomes.
Kelly’s research career began with a Ph.B. (honours) degree in Chemistry from the Australian National University, after which she embarked on a PhD in Kiyoshi Nagai’s group at the LMB where she studied the structure and molecular mechanisms of the spliceosome. Her studies of telomerase began in 2016, when she moved to the University of California, Berkeley to work with Kathleen Collins and Eva Nogales. She launched her own research group at the LMB in 2019.
Kelly has previously been awarded the 2024 Colworth Medal from the Biochemical Society, the 2022 Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators, the 2020 Suffrage Science Award curated by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS), and the 2017 Early Career Research Award from the Biochemical Society.