High-resolution structures of nascent polypeptide chains in complex with the ribosome — the cell’s protein-synthesis machinery — reveal how the ribosome guides protein folding. Ribosomal attachment ...

Katherine Bourzac is a freelance journalist in San Francisco, California. Proteins’ functions are closely tied to their often-complex 3D structures. Some have specialized pockets or protrusions that ...

When a protein folds, its string of amino acids wiggles and jiggles through countless conformations before it forms a fully folded, functional protein. This rapid and complex process is hard to ...

The chains of amino acids that make up proteins are critical to every form of life. The complex ways that these proteins fold and interact has fascinated researchers for decades. Exactly how a protein ...

Proteins are the molecular machines of cells. They are produced in protein factories called ribosomes based on their blueprint—the genetic information. Here, the basic building blocks of proteins, ...

For those outside the chemistry cognoscenti, the announcement might have seemed little more than researchers patting each other on the back. But the question of protein folding had plagued scientists ...

A team of US researchers has gained new insights into how large protein molecules consistently fold themselves into useful shapes. Using a new approach to fluorescence microscopy, Hoi Sung Chung and ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The shared culprit in a slew of diseases — cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes — is molecules our cells have made incorrectly. Think of them as proteins gone wrong.