Roles of the Ubiquitin System in Health and Disease
The selective degradation of many short-lived proteins in eukaryotic cells is carried out by the ubiquitin-mediated proteolytic system. In this pathway, proteins are targeted for degradation by covalent ligation to ubiquitin, a highly conserved small....
More details | Watch nowStructural Aspects of Protease Control in Health and Disease
This lecture starts out with a very brief review of the history of protein crystallography and continue with our studies since 1970 on proteolytic enzymes and their control. Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic....
More details | Watch nowAquaporin Water Channels – From Atomic Structure to Malaria
Aquaporin channels allow water to rapidly cross cell membranes in all living organisms. AQP1 confers red cells and proximal renal tubules with high water permeability. Present in renal collecting duct, AQP2 is regulated by vasopressin, and human muta....
More details | Watch nowTickling Worms: Surprises From Basic Research
Research, at least my research, has never been linear. I have found that my lab and I often double back on problems after years of inactivity or go off in entirely new directions as dictated by the work and peoples interests. This lack of direction....
More details | Watch nowDiscovery of Nitric Oxide and Cyclic GMP in Cell Signaling and Their Role in Drug Development
The role of nitric oxide in cellular signaling in the past three decades has become one of the most rapidly growing areas in biology. Nitric oxide is a gas and a free radical with an unshared electron that can regulate an ever-growing list of biolog....
More details | Watch nowStructural Studies on Cholesterol Transport
Cholesterol has two essential functions in our bodies: It is an important component of cell membranes and it serves as the starting material for the synthesis of bile acids, steroid hormones, and other compounds. The human body obtains necessary cho....
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Biological membranes define and compartmentalize the cells of higher organisms. Consisting of membrane proteins and lipids, they are basically impermeable for ions and polar substances, so that electric voltages (_membrane potentialsî) and substanc....
More details | Watch nowShort-term Synaptic Plasticity
Our brain is a network of about 10^11 neurons, which are connected via synapses. A neuron typically receives input from about 10000 other neurons, which can be either excitatory or inhibitory. The neuron integrates these inputs and generates an actio....
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Supramolecular chemistry lies beyond molecular chemistry. It aims at implementing highly complex chemical systems from molecular components held together by non-covalent intermolecular forces and effecting molecular recognition, catalysis and transp....
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For cancer diagnosis and therapy, we are developing activatable cell-penetrating peptides (ACPPs), synthetic molecules with a novel amplifying mechanism for homing to diseased tissues. ACPPs are polycationic cell-penetrating peptides whose cellular ....
More details | Watch nowAquaporin Water Channels _ From Atomic Structure to Malaria
Aquaporin (AQP) water channel proteins enable high water permeability in certain biological membranes. Discovered in human red cells but expressed in multiple tissues, AQP1 has been thoroughly characterized and its atomic structure is known. Expres....
More details | Watch nowYou can see a lot by observing: Optical Microscopy 2.0
Biological research and medicine were transformed by the invention and improvement of the optical microscope. Since the early 1990s, there has been another revolution in optical imaging, and manipulation of individual biological molecules and bio-mo....
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