The ISMB spans Birkbeck and UCL with researchers in the core Departments at Birkbeck Biological Sciences and several UCL Research Departments. Research groups from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) are joint co-applicants as they have strong links and collaborations with groups from ISMB. All groups share common interests in disciplines including structural, chemical, molecular and cell biology; using multidisciplinary and multiscalar approaches. ISMB, UCL and QMUL investigators, ranging from early-career research fellows to internationally-established senior academics, apply X-ray crystallography carried out mainly at our Wellcome funded facility at Birkbeck, as an essential method enabling: i) description of the atomic-level mechanistic details of macromolecules and macromolecular machines, and ii) structure-based drug discovery, while iii) complementing and supporting cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) projects.