Welcome to Reciprocal Space.
I am Stephen Curry, a Professor of Structural Biology at Imperial College, London. Few people know what ‘structural biology’ is but in my case it means I figure out the three-dimensional structures from biological molecules in atomic detail, using X-rays and crystals. My main interests are in the proteins used by RNA viruses such as foot-and-mouth disease virus; this work helps to reveal how these tiny pathogens tick.
The aim of this blog is to tell the story of what it’s like to work in science in the UK in the 21st Century, to explore the larger social and political responsibilities of being a scientist and to allow me to expound, more or less randomly, on matters that may be only loosely related to science.
I also contribute to the Occam’s Corner blog that we run at the Guardian and have a non-science and largely photo-based blog at Posterous.
My writing has appeared in The Guardian, Times Higher Education, The Biochemist, Research Fortnight, New Scientist, at Lablit and in the Open Laboratory anthologies of the best science blogging in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 (2011 was skipped because of a change of publisher — go figure).
I also enjoy producing still and moving pictures. I like history and the arts, but know very little about either.
I have a couple of other blogs, one for my “I’m a scientist” film (of which I am excessively proud) and a posterous blog — scurry’s posterous — which is mostly for pictures and non-science stuff.
Email me at s dot curry at imperial dot ac dot uk
