Steve Gamblin is joint Head of the Division of Molecular Structure at the NIMR. During postdoctoral training in Harvard, with Professor Stephen Harrison, he worked on HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. Solving this problem necessitated finding ways of ‘freezing’ and handling large libraries of crystals. This time spent developing cryo-crystallography produced a methodology that is now ubiquitous in protein crystallography. Previous structural studies have shed light on transcriptional regulation, such as histone methylation, signal transduction and recently on the glycoproteins from the influenza avian H5N1 and 1918 H1N1 viruses. All of these were difficult problems with a high impact on human health. At the NIMR, Dr Gamblin has played a key role, together with Dr Stephen Smerdon, in providing powerful leadership in developing a multi-disciplinary structure-based approach to understanding molecular mechanisms.