Using a pinhead-sized sample of brain tissue from the Iceman Ötzi, scientists were able to identify numerous brain proteins, as well as proteins from blood cells, opening up new research possibilities for mummies. After decoding the Iceman’s genetic make-up, a research team from the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (EURAC), Saarland University, Kiel University and other [...]

Researchers have identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may prove to be the first effective treatment for a form of age-related heart failure, finding in mice that hearts reduced in size and thickness and resembled healthy hearts of younger mice when the protein GDF-11 was injected. Two Harvard Stem Cell [...]

A newly published study from Yale University looks at longhorn beetle Rhagium inquisitor and its ability to supercool to below -25°C, examining the unusual structure of its antifreeze protein. In 2011, Yale undergraduates asked a question: How does a Siberian beetle survive some of the cruelest winters on earth? Their answer appears on the cover [...]

Focusing on a protein called von Willebrand factor (VWF), a team of scientists discovered how stresses of blood flow in small blood vessels of the brain and heart could cause changes to the shape of VWF and form blood clots. New research from Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Puget Sound Blood [...]

Using a high performance computing infrastructure, a team of researchers developed the first versatile and modular example of a fully artificial protein-mimetic model system that recreates principal activities of proteins. Physicists of the University of Vienna together with researchers from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna developed nano-machines which recreate principal activities [...]

A newly published study details how researchers turned an ordinary protein into an artificial enzyme, a biological catalyst capable of joining two segments of RNA. Five years ago, a pair of researchers used a clever update on a technique called in vitro evolution – evolution in a test tube – to turn an ordinary protein [...]

The enzyme protein kinase M-ζ (PKM-ζ) was thought to be a fixture of long-term memory, as its inhibition could erase old memories, whilst adding it could strengthen faded ones. Two independent groups have challenged the role of this memory molecule by developing mice that completely lack it and show no detectable memory problems. The scientists [...]

A rogue protein involved in Parkinson’s disease that wrecks catastrophic damage has been tracked down by researchers in work that could help find a new possible treatment for the disease. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science. Virginia Lee, a neurobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and her team a misfolded [...]

Proteins fold spontaneously into precise conformation, time after time, optimized by evolution. Yet given the number of contortions possible for chains of amino acids, dictating how a sequence will fold itself into a predicable structure has been a daunting task. Researchers have been able to accomplish this feat. The scientists published their findings in the [...]

A team of scientists designed proteins from scratch to have a high affinity and high specificity for targets on flu viruses, validating the two best designs using X-ray diffraction data collected at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Understanding why proteins interact with certain specific molecules and not with the myriad others in their environment is [...]

By using common baker’s yeast as a model system, Harvard researchers discovered how the key motor protein dynein interacts with a molecule called Lis1. Molecular motors keep us alive. These cellular transport services, built from proteins, circulate essential chemical packages between the heart of the cell, the nucleus, and the cell periphery. In elongated cells [...]

A new study from MIT looks at what happens when the SIRT1 protein is missing from adipose tissue in mice, finding that SIRT1 protects from inflammation and obesity and forestalls the progression to metabolic dysfunction under dietary stress and aging. A protein that slows aging in mice and other animals also protects against the ravages [...]