Intricate processes in photosynthesis decoded using advanced electron microscopy technique

This enables breakthroughs in multiple areas of biological and chemical research

25-Jun-2024 - Using cryo-electron microscopy a team of scientists from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU), the Swedish universities of Umeå and Uppsala and the University of Potsdam has succeeded in visualising atomic structures at an unprecedented resolution at the nanometre level underlying the process of ...

Molecular orbitals determine stability

The results could also help industry to optimise the stability of coordination polymers

14-Feb-2024 - Carboxylic acid dianions (fumarate, maleate and succinate) play a role in coordination chemistry and to some extent also in the biochemistry of body cells. An HZB team at BESSY II has now analysed their electronic structures using RIXS in combination with DFT simulations. The results provide ...

How herpesviruses escape from the immune system

06-Jul-2018 - Herpesviruses are the cause of many diseases, such as shingles or mononucleosis ('kissing disease') that compromise our quality of life. While the human immune system can usually prevent the spread of herpesviruses, it cannot entirely eliminate them from our bodies. This is because these viruses ...

On the Track of Nitrogenase

Decisive step towards understanding biological nitrogen fixation taken

03-Apr-2018 - Another step has been taken towards explaining the molecular mechanisms of biological fixation of nitrogen by the enzyme nitrogenase: Dr. Daniel Sippel from Prof. Dr. Oliver Einsle’s work group at the Institute of Biochemistry of the University of Freiburg has shown that the iron-vanadium ...

How Blood Vessels Are Formed

New insights into the development of the vascular system

18-Sep-2017 - New insights into the development of the vascular system: researchers in the team of Dr Carmen Ruiz de Almodóvar of the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center have discovered a crucial biological step that regulates the formation of blood vessels. They were able to show that the proteins YAP ...

Family member with special connections

How the chaperone Ssb connects to the ribosome

07-Dec-2016 - For 20 years, researchers have tried to find out why the chaperone Ssb is the only member of the widespread Hsp70-chaperone family that is able to bind directly to the ribosome. This question has now been answered at the University of Konstanz. Through the collaboration of the teams of Professor ...

Nanoribbons for graphene transistors

Materials for tomorrow's nanoelectronics

23-Jul-2010 - In the recent issue of Nature, scientists from Empa and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research report how they have managed for the first time to grow graphene ribbons that are just a few nanometres wide using a simple surface-based chemical method. Graphene ribbons are considered to be ...

Scientists develop new method to identify glycosylated proteins

02-Jun-2010 - Various processes in our body are controlled by subsequent changes of proteins. Therefore, the identification of such modifications is essential for the further exploration of our organism. Now, scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, have made a crucial ...

A breakthrough toward industrial production of fluorescent nanodiamonds

08-Jun-2009 - The laboratory «Structure - Activité of Normal & Pathologic Biomolecules - SANPB», Inserm / UEVE U829 (Genopole Evry, France) in collaboration with the Material Centre of Mines-ParisTech (Evry, France), the NRG - UMR 5060 CNRS / UTBM (Technology University of Belfort-Montbéliard) and the Physic ...

Building with pentagons

02-Jun-2009 - Achim Müller and co-workers from Bielefeld University and Marshall Luban with his co-workers from the Departments of Physics and Astronomy at both Francis Marion University and Iowa State University worked on synthesising a Keplerate using pentagonal tungsten-oxide based units and studied its ...