Taking control of our vital signal transmitters
30 Jan 2012
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the single most important drug target in the body because they are central to so many biological processes. Gaining a better understanding of how GPCRs operate will Find out more...

Structural studies in the fight against inherited disease
20 Oct 2011
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a dominantly-inherited neuropsychiatric disorder. Typically the symptoms begin in adulthood, slowly progressing from movement disorder to behavioural and cognitive disturbances, Find out more...

New knowledge will boost fight against superbug
06 Sep 2011
A breakthrough in the fight against drug-resistant infections is one step closer following the discovery of the structure of NDM-1: a vicious form of bacteria that is currently resistant to the most powerful Find out more...

Structural study shows how plant pathogens evolve to attack our vegetables
18 Aug 2011
Fungus-like eukaryotic plant pathogens of the genus Phytophthora are devastating to root crops and vegetables because the effector proteins they produce can evolve rapidly to evade recognition by the host’s Find out more...

Virus descendents point the way towards new therapy solutions
13 Jul 2011
Just as humans have an ancestry, so too do viruses. But whereas we can use fossils to help identify the creatures that roamed the earth before us, viruses are much harder to classify and have left no fossilised Find out more...

Common features of GPCR activation revealed by crystal structures of agonist-bound adenosine A2A receptor
03 Jun 2011
G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a large family of proteins that span the cell membrane of eukaryotes and consist of seven transmembrane helices. GPCRs respond to molecules outside the cell and Find out more...

Sugar sensing by our resident gut bacteria
03 Jun 2011
Our indigenous gut microbiota play an important role in maintaining normal health and nutrition. They provide us with traits that the human genome does not encode, such as the degradation of otherwise Find out more...

Studying molecular fossils- ancient lentiviral-CypA interactions
03 Jun 2011
Lentiviruses are associated with chronic disease states in a variety of mammals. However, until recently it was thought that these pathogens had no capacity for germ-line integration, and were only spread Find out more...

Cooperative binding principles of tetrameric gene regulators revealed by crystal structures of TtgV
03 Jun 2011
The majority of bacterial gene regulators bind as symmetric dimers to palindromic DNA operators. Multimeric forms of proteins, including tetramers, are able to recognize longer operator sequences in a Find out more...

The semaphorin-plexin system: a structural and functional analysis of cell guidance
03 Jun 2011
The intricate wiring of the human brain requires cell surface signalling systems to guide the growing neurites to their correct locations. Indeed, the development and homeostasis of tissues throughout Find out more...