Protein cages found in nature within microbes help weather its contents from the harsh intracellular environment -- an observation with many bioengineering applications. Researchers recently developed ...

The latest short science news items from C&EN. Compared with enzymes, protein catalysts are simpler, more stable at high temperatures, and can also be used in environmentally friendly organic solvents ...

How did life arise on Earth? Researchers have found among the first and perhaps only hard evidence that simple protein catalysts -- essential for cells, the building blocks of life, to function -- may ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Feb. 18, 1997), pp. 1096-1100 (5 pages) The GroE chaperones of Escherichia coli assist protein folding ...

Inside every cell, a finely tuned metabolic network determines when to build, recycle, or stop producing essential molecules.

Biological targets represent a considerable test of our knowledge of the fundamental principles of molecular recognition. Effective modulation of biological events requires the generation of molecules ...

One widely held model of early life suggests primitive cells consisted of simple RNA-based catalysts within lipid compartments. One possible selective advantage conferred by an encapsulated catalyst ...

An important Brandeis study appearing in the December 3 issue of Nature raises the curtain on the hidden lives of proteins at the atomic level. The study reports that for the first time, researchers ...

Proteins are life's molecular workhorses, doing everything from turning sunlight into food to fighting viruses. They are built from 20 different types of amino acid molecules, so even a small protein ...