Even small errors made by cells during protein production can have profound disease effects, and nature has developed ways to uncover these mistakes and correct them. Though in the case of one essential protein building block—the amino acid alanine—nature has been extra careful, developing not one, but two checkpoints in her effort to make sure that this component is used correctly.

University of Dublin researchers David Knowles and Aoife McLysaght, of the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, have identified three uniquely human genes that are not found in any other species.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new process for determining the structure of proteins, which relies on an intense beam of light generated at the Advance Light Source (ALS) facility also on site - and shortens the typical time required to identify unknown biomolecules from years to just weeks.

One-third of eukaryotic proteins are integrated within membranes, as are the targets of 40% of approved drugs. However, the lack of a general means of solubilizing, stabilizing and structurally characterizing these active membrane proteins has frustrated efforts to understand their mechanisms and exploit their potential value.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the hundreds of bacteria that colonize the human intestinal tract, usually causing no apparent harm - perhaps even being beneficial to its host. However, once the immune system of the host is weakened by an illness or surgical procedure - P. aeruginosa can cause infection, inflammation, sepsis and death.

Nutrigenomic's bidirectional approach to investigating how the genetic traits of an individual or population interact with their diet offers many possibilities for targeted clinical interventions and preventive medicine.

Could Wisconsin's signature product – milk – hold the key to one of the biggest problems in organ transplantation?

University of Montreal researcher, Santiago Costantino and colleagues, demonstrated the flexibility and precision of their laser-assisted protein adsorption technique by patterning a fluorescent microscale version of the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' - the famous painting by the Dutchman, Johannes Vermeer.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Cells are expected to respond defensively when an
antigen lands on a cell membrane and prepares to cause mischief.

But to activate a response, a cell must become aware of the presence
of the intruder on its membrane, just as a human first must become
aware of a mosquito on a forearm in order to slap it.

Jamey Marth, Ph.D., UC San Diego Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and researcher with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has come up with a unified molecular view of the cell.