We are pleased to announce that Daniel Ramirez Montero, a postdoc in the Crick's Macromolecular Machines Laboratory, is one of 13 people to have been awarded the prestigious Rubicon postdoctoral fellowship. We caught up with Daniel to find out more about his project.

What is the Rubicon fellowship?

The Rubicon postdoctoral fellowship, awarded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), allows scientists and academics who recently obtained their PhD in the Netherlands to gain experience at a foreign knowledge institute. This increases the chance that they can continue working in academia. Each year, Rubicon has three funding rounds with deadlines around 1 April, 1 September and 1 December.

Can you tell us about your research project? 

My project title is: Visualising metazoan replication initiation with correlative fluorescence and cryo-electron microscopy.

Proliferating cells must synthesise an exact copy of their genome before dividing. This process is catalysed by the replisome, which accurately copies the DNA to maintain genomic stability and prevent genetic disease and cancer. My project aims to understand how metazoan cells start this DNA copying process. In particular, I will study the initial stages of replisome assembly in the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis using correlative single-molecule fluorescence microscopy and cryogenic electron microscopy.

How does it feel to have received the fellowship? 

I’m honoured and humbled to get this recognition from the Dutch government. I’m also very excited to combine my doctoral training in single-molecule biophysics with structural biology to tackle challenging questions in biology.

Is there any advice you would give to other postdocs interested in applying in future? 

I believe that one of the aspects that stood out in my proposal was its multidisciplinary character, combining single-molecule biophysics, biochemistry, and structural biology. I would therefore advise other postdocs to come up with creative ways of tackling the complicated questions in modern biology, even if they require learning a new field.

When I started to do research, I was a bit scared of stepping out of my comfort zone, biochemistry. However, for my PhD, I decided to venture into the exciting field of biophysics, and for my postdoc, into the field of structural biology. Incorporating tools from other fields into one’s research can be hard initially, as the learning curve can be steep, but very nurturing and creativity-boosting in the long run.