biology

Sjors Scheres

Sjors Scheres is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sjors Scheres rather than just read about it. In short: Sjors Hendrik Willem Scheres FRS (born 1975) is a Dutch scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) Cambridge, UK. Since 2018, he has jointly led the LMB's Structural Studies Division.

Key takeaways

Sjors Scheres belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sjors Scheres to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sjors Scheres from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sjors Hendrik Willem Scheres FRS (born 1975) is a Dutch scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) Cambridge, UK. Since 2018, he has jointly led the LMB's Structural Studies Division.

Education Scheres studied Chemistry at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, and spent nine months at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France for his undergraduate research thesis. He then came back to Utrecht University for his DPhil in Protein Crystallography, which was supervised by Piet Gros.

Career Scheres worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at the Spanish National Center for Biotechnology (CNB) with José Maria Carazo from 2003-2010, where he developed classification algorithms for Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) images based on Maximum likelihood estimation. In 2010 Scheres was appointed as a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge. There, he extended his maximum-likelihood methods to a general Empirical Bayes method for Protein structure determination by cryo-EM, which he implemented in the computer program RELION. In 2020, Scheres and collaborators used RELION to reach atomic resolution for a cryo-EM reconstruction of apo-Ferritin. Besides developing algorithms for cryo-EM image processing, Scheres has also collaborated with experimental groups to solve important protein structures. For example, Xiaochen Bai, currently at UTSW, in his group solved the structure of human Gamma secretase in a collaboration with Shi Yigong. Since 2016, Scheres has worked closely together with Michel Goedert, who is also at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Using cryo-EM image processing methods that were developed by Scheres, they solved the structure of Amyloid fibrils of Tau protein from the brain of an individual with Alzheimer's disease. Since then, Scheres and Goedert have also solved the cryo-EM structures of tau filaments from multiple other Tauopathies, as well as filaments of Amyloid beta from Alzheimer's disease, Alpha-synuclein from Multiple system atrophy and TMEM106B. Scheres has been a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for eLife since 2014. He has been joint Head of the Division of Structural Studies of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology since 2018. In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2022, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Awards Leeuwenhoek Lecture of the Royal Society (2022) Bijvoet medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research (2018) Elected EMBO Member (2017) Gold medal KNCV (2015) Nature's 10 who mattered in 2014

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sjors Scheres

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sjors Scheres claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sjors Scheres before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sjors Scheres ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sjors Scheres

In research: Sjors Scheres appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sjors Scheres in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sjors Scheres is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1975 births, Bijvoet Medal recipients, Dutch expatriates in the United Kingdom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sjors Scheres outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sjors Scheres in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sjors Scheres means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sjors Scheres out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sjors Scheres in simple terms?

Sjors Hendrik Willem Scheres FRS (born 1975) is a Dutch scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) Cambridge, UK. Since 2018, he has jointly led the LMB's Structural Studies Division.

Why does Sjors Scheres matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sjors Scheres?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sjors Scheres.