News

Using supercomputers, scientists are designing proteins that self-assemble to combine and resemble life-giving molecules like hemoglobin. The scientists say their methods could be applied to useful technologies such as pharmaceutical targeting and artificial energy harvesting. Using jellyfish proteins, the scientists were able to assemble a complex sixteen protein structure composed of two stacked octamers.

Preterm babies born without haptoglobin, a protein in blood cells, have higher odds of brain bleeding, cerebral palsy and death.

In a study of people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and their twins and other close relatives, UC San Diego researchers were able to diagnose liver cirrhosis simply by analyzing a person’s stool microbes

For the first time, scientists have engineered the complex biological process of translation into a designer organelle in a living mammalian cell.

A virus that infects a dangerous bacteria helps it thrive in wounds, but a vaccine against the virus dramatically cuts the bacteria’s infectivity.

Researchers have developed a new computational mass-spectrometry system for identifying metabolomes (entire sets of metabolites for different living organisms). When the new method was tested on select tissues from 12 plants species, it was able to note over a thousand metabolites. Among them were dozens that had never been found before, including those with antibiotic and anti-cancer potential.

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s or Parkinson’s disease are associated with misfolded and aggregated proteins. Researchers have discovered a new mechanism used by cells to protect themselves.

A genetic disorder in which the protein Alpha-1-antitrypsin is not produced requires sufferers to endure frequent blood transfusions. To obtain the correct dose of protein, blood from 900 donors is required. Now, a group of researchers has found a way to produce the Alpha-1-antitrypsin protein in mammalian cells.

Researchers have solved the structures of the cancer-promoting enzymes USP25 and USP28, and identified significant differences in their activities. This knowledge provides the molecular basis for the development of new and highly specific anti-cancer drugs, with a low risk of side-effects.

Researchers have described a new muscular disease caused by a mutation in the myoglobin gene.