Structural biology: Molecular scissors caught in the act

Structure of an enzyme crucial for tRNA maturation sheds light on cause of neurodegenerative disorders

17-Jul-2023 - In all living organisms, the biomolecule transfer RNA (tRNA) plays a fundamental role in protein production. tRNAs are generated from precursor molecules in several steps. The enzyme tRNA splicing endonuclease (TSEN), among other things, catalyzes one step in this process. Mutations in TSEN lead ...

Time-resolved crystallography for the masses

“The Spitrobot will greatly accelerate research in enzymatic mechanisms"

08-May-2023 - Scientists from four research institutes in the Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld have joined forces to develop a ground-breaking experimental setup. Their new Spitrobot greatly simplifies observing changes in proteins as they carry out their functions. This makes time-resolved crystallography ...

New light for shaping electron beams

Adaptive imaging technique for materials science and structural biology

03-Oct-2022 - A new technique that combines electron microscopy and laser technology enables programmable, arbitrary shaping of electron beams. It can potentially be used for optimizing electron optics and for adaptive electron microscopy, maximizing sensitivity while minimizing beam-induced damage. This ...

Comparison of two nano rulers

Study compares two methods for distance measurement in motile proteins

08-Aug-2022 - In the Middle Ages, every city had its own system of measurement. Even today, you can sometimes find iron rods in marketplaces that determined the length measurement valid for the city at that time. In science, however, there is no room for such uncertainties, and no matter what method you use to ...

Microscopy technique enables 3D super-resolution nanometre-scale imaging

Research team combine two techniques to achieve isotropic super-resolution imaging

24-Jun-2022 - Over the last two decades, microscopy has seen unprecedented advances in speed and resolution. However, cellular structures are essentially three-dimensional, and conventional super-resolution techniques often lack the necessary resolution in all three directions to capture details at a nanometer ...

CCDC Launches The FAIRE Programme to Support International Crystallography

31-Aug-2017 - The Frank H. Allen International Research & Education Programme to provide long-term grants to enable academic structural chemistry studies in developing countries. The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (The CCDC) announces the creation of a programme to support structural chemistry research ...

Extreme x-ray pulses create unique image of intact virus

07-Feb-2011 - They are entirely too small to be seen even with the most powerful microscope. But now an international research team has managed to capture an image of an intact virus and a membrane structure from a photosynthetic bacterium with the aid of extremely intensive and ultra-short x-ray pulses from ...

In scientific first, researchers visualize naturally occurring mRNA

17-Jan-2011 - In a technique that could eventually shed light on how gene expression influences human disease, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have for the first time ever successfully visualized single molecules of naturally-occurring messenger RNA (mRNA) transcribed in ...

New microscope reveals ultrastructure of cells

HZB researchers can take images of small cellular components in their natural environment – while the cell remains intact

01-Dec-2010 - Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) have developed a new X-ray nanotomography microscope. Using their new system, they can reveal the structures on the smallest components of mammalian cells in three dimensions. For the first time, there is no need to chemically fix, stain or cut cells ...

Einstein researchers find molecular structure of key fluorescent proteins

26-Apr-2010 - Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have determined the crystal structures of two key fluorescent proteins – one blue, one red – used to "light up" molecules in cells. That finding has allowed them to propose a chemical mechanism by which the red color in ...