Helen Saibil

Helen Saibil is the Bernal Professor of Structural Biology at Birkbeck College, University of London, with a 10% secondment at the Diamond Light Source National Facility for Cryo-electron Microscopy. She holds a BSc in Biophysics from McGill University (1971) and a PhD in Biophysics from King's College London (1977). Her research focuses on cryo-electron microscopy, molecular chaperones, and cellular aggregation mechanisms. She has led groundbreaking studies on protein folding, amyloid structures, and membrane pore formation using advanced structural biology techniques.

Key honors include Fellowship in the Royal Society (2006), Academy of Medical Sciences (2009), and EMBO Membership (2001). She chairs major conferences in structural biology and serves on editorial boards of Cell, EMBO J, and EMBO Reports. Current grants include Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator awards and ERC Advanced Grants totaling over £17M, supporting national cryo-EM infrastructure and malaria research.

Her work bridges fundamental biology with clinical implications, particularly in understanding protein misfolding diseases and immune defense mechanisms. She collaborates internationally, advising institutions like the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and IGBMC (Strasbourg).