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Mike Hough

@mikehough

Structural biologist and beamline scientist at Diamond light source, Hon Prof @ University of Essex. Interested in room temperature macromolecular crystallography, serial and time resolved work - and metalloproteins.

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15.11.2024
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Latest posts by Mike Hough @mikehough

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Understanding heme enzyme mechanism using dynamic, time resolved crystallography and QM/MM simulations at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Understanding heme enzyme mechanism using dynamic, time resolved crystallography and QM/MM simulations at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com

An exciting PhD studentship available between the U. of Manchester (Sam Lay) and Diamond Light Source -an opportunity to work with experimental time-resolved structural biology and state-of-the-art computational simulations to gain a deep understandingf enzymes.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

25.02.2026 12:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Can ferric-oxyl excited states explain elongated iron-oxygen bonds in heme peroxidase catalytic intermediates? - Nature Communications Peroxidases have long been considered to use ferryl heme intermediates (Fe(IV)โ€‰=โ€‰O) to catalyze oxidative chemistries. Here, Williams et al. find that ferric-oxyl (FeIIIโ€“Oโ€ขโ€“) excited states exist alon...

New paper describing our time resolved SFX studies with spectroscopic validation through XES to propose new intermediates in heme peroxidases. A large team of researchers led by Essex and Diamond @jarworrall.bsky.social @diamondlightsource.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

09.02.2026 14:31 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Beamline Scientist - VMXi (11779)

We have a fixed term beamline scientist post available at VMXi, Diamond. The successful applicant will join the team at a dedicated room temperature MX beamline and help with user experiments in fragment screening and time resolved serial crystallography.
vacancies.diamond.ac.uk/vacancy/beam...

14.01.2026 09:06 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 3 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Hundred-Picolitre Droplet on Demand Tape Drive and XES Prototypes for Time-Resolved Serial Crystallography at VMXi, Diamond Light Source Time resolved X-ray crystallography is experiencing a resurgence in part because of serial methods that readily allow scientists to create stop-motion movies of macromolecular function of photoactivat...

Our new preprint showing preliminary results from our droplet on demand tape drive and XES spectrometer system at Diamond VMXi - applied to protein microcrystals including a copper enzyme
eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

26.11.2025 10:16 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Recent paper showing the power of combining advanced structural biology with QM/MM simulations to understand a heme enzyme. Work between Diamond, STFC, Bristol and Essex. We present evidence for the presence of an unusual protein to heme cross-link.
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

22.08.2025 14:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Time-resolved serial synchrotron and serial femtosecond crystallography of heme proteins using photocaged nitric oxide We demonstrate the application of a nitric oxide releasing photocage system for time-resolved serial crystallography studies of two heme containing proteins using a fixed target sample delivery system...

New paper describing use of photocaged nitric oxide for time resolved crystallography within fixed targets at XFEL and synchrotron - PhD work of Pete Smyth & Lewis Williams - great collaboration with @jarworrall.bsky.social, beamline I24 and SACLA. Funded by BBSRC
journals.iucr.org/m/issues/202...

22.08.2025 12:52 ๐Ÿ‘ 9 ๐Ÿ” 5 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Enhanced intensity-based clustering of isomorphous multi-crystal data sets in the presence of subtle variations Bovine, porcine and human insulin data sets are isomorphous in terms of unit cell and symmetry. Through enhancements to the multi-crystal clustering methods in DIALS, species-pure data sets are automa...

Paper describing clustering methods to separate subtle structural differences in populations of protein crystals - with application to polymorphs, ligand binding.. - led by Amy Thompson @amyjayyyne.bsky.social with VMXi,I24 and Data Analysis at @ddiamond.bsky.social journals.iucr.org/d/issues/202...

02.06.2025 07:41 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I'm awaiting the 24 hr rolling news coverage of the Conclave - where there is zero to actually report until smoke comes out of the chimney!

25.04.2025 08:16 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

As part of this work we explicitly measured the XFEL temporal pulse profiles with a Wakefield device rather than inferring pulse length from electron bunch parameters

15.04.2025 15:21 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Damage before destruction? X-ray-induced changes in single-pulse serial femtosecond crystallography Varied pulse-duration and pulse-intensity serial femtosecond crystallography data do not show significant signs of radiation damage under typical experimental conditions.

Our new paper exploring the effect of XFEL pulse length and pulse intensity on electron density maps of two radiation sensitive proteins. A great collaboration between Diamond, SwissFEL and University of Essex's Worrall group.
journals.iucr.org/m/issues/202...

15.04.2025 12:19 ๐Ÿ‘ 8 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
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Cytochromes P460 and cโ€ฒ-ฮฒ: exploiting a novel fold for multiple functions - JBIC Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry Two related classes of ligand-binding heme c-containing proteins with a high degree of structural homology have been identified and characterized over recent decades: cytochromes P460 (cyts P460), def...

Nice to see our review on the fascinating cytochromes P460 and cytochromes c' - that use a similar and unusual structure to carry out very different functions out in JBIC. An idea for a mini review that expanded! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

04.03.2025 12:09 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Just getting started on blue sky - Using this mostly for work purposes, as a brief intro for people I don't already know - I'm a structural biologist at Diamond Light Source specialising in room temperature X-ray structures and serial crystallography at synchrotrons and XFELs

26.11.2024 08:58 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0