Banumathi Sankaran, a bioscientist in the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source, was part of a Baylor College of Medicine-led team that studied proteins involved in making the cytoplasmic compartments in which many DNA and RNA virus pathogens replicate. Understanding their molecular methods of construction could offer an avenue for disrupting virus production. More>

Lab researchers, in collaboration with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Max Planck Institute, have demonstrated that fluctuation X-ray scattering is capable of capturing the behavior of biological systems in unprecedented detail. The team developed a novel mathematical and data analyses framework that was applied to data obtained from DOE’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC. More>

Eva Nogales, faculty scientist in the Biosciences Area, led a team that captured freeze-frames of the changing shape of the huge macromolecular complex, transcription factor IID, as it locks onto DNA and loads the machinery for reading the genetic code. Scientists used cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) to obtain snapshots of this structure as it engages with DNA, scans the sequence, and recruits and rearranges the appropriate proteins. More>