Dr Samuel Roberts

Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
School Biological Sciences
Department MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Email sroberts@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Twitter @SamRobe22992890
Department link MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB)
Phone number 01223 267 965

Sam is a postdoctoral research associate at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology working on the chemistry of the origins of life, with a particular interest in the development of coded peptide synthesis.

After completing his undergraduate masters in Chemistry at Oxford in 2014, Sam moved to UCL to study for a PhD under Professor Matthew Powner. At UCL his work focused on studying the origins of nucleotides on Earth and it was here that he developed his interest in canonical biological molecules vs xeno-biological molecules - asking why is life based on RNA? In 2018 he took a break from prebiotic chemistry and moved to Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian FRS’s lab at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry in Cambridge. There he worked on epigenetic marks in DNA focusing on G-quadruplexes. He also took on a voluntary secondment at the COVID-19 PCR testing centre at the Anne Maclaren building as part of a collaboration between GSK, Astra Zeneca and the University of Cambridge during the first wave of the 2020 pandemic. He started his current position at the MRC-LMB in April 2021.

Sam’s current work focuses on the origins of the mechanisms of translation in Biology i.e. how genetic code gets converted into proteins. These studies have centered around building tRNA – the molecule which ensures the correct amino acid matches the correct codon sequence - in a prebiotically plausible manner. He and his colleagues are supervised by Professor John Sutherland FRS. Sam is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and supervises undergraduate chemistry for the natural sciences courses. He also takes part in outreach events for the MRC and the university, such as the I’m a Scientist – Pandemic Prevention Zone for the Royal Institution and Microscopes4Schools competition.

What's on

Event Type (field_event_type)

Graduation Ceremony

27/04/2024 at 09.00

Graduation ceremonies are the culmination of students’ hard work and commitment, and a moment to celebrate the completion of their Cambridge degree.

A dark brown vase with orange symbol on in front of a blurred background of more pottery on shelves.

Art Exhibition: Ceramics in the Bernard Leach Tradition

28/04/2024 at 10.00

A display of works from the Bradshaw-Bubier studio pottery collection.

Three skeletons depicted in a dance-like pose on a grassy field, from a historic illustration.

The Difficult Joy of Death Activism

30/04/2024 at 17.30

How we can develop ‘death activism’ – a variety of tactics and posthuman practices which celebrate death, its inevitability, its forms, from the slow to times of crisis, and how can trauma and mourning emerge as their own forms of expression, or even activism?

Photograph of Sandi Toksvig, wearing a yellow shirt and leaning against a stone entryway.

Lee Lecture: How to change the world. A quick guide.

01/05/2024 at 18.00

We are delighted to welcome Sandi Toksvig OBE as our speaker for Wolfson's prestigious Lee Lecture this year.

Five colorful hexagons with icons representing law, science, social network, nature, and music.

Wolfson Research Event 2024

02/05/2024 at 09.00

Join us for the 2024 Wolfson Research Event: an interdisciplinary academic conference organised by students to showcase the diversity of the research carried out by Wolfson students.

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