La Jolla, CA---- One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain.

For more than a decade, researchers have been unable to solve the structure of the retroviral protease of M-PMV, a simian AIDS-causing monkey virus. For each enzyme being studied, there are literally millions of possible combinations to how the bonds between atoms form. Once unlocked, the "correct" chemical key - one that uses the most-efficient configuration with the lowest amount of energy - can lead researchers to a better understanding of an enzyme, and in the case of AIDS researchers studying this particular one, a better means to attack it.

Which came first .... the chicken, or the egg? The philosophical mystery that has perplexed generations has finally been "cracked" by scientists from Sheffield University and the University of Warick. The researchers have discovered that a protein required for the formation of the chicken egg shells is found in only one place - inside the ovaries of the chicken.

A March 24, 2010 press release from Johns Hopkins details a research team that screened hundreds of thousands of small chemical compounds, and identified a class of compounds that - at least in a test tube - blocks tuberculosis growth. The scientists screened 175,000 small chemical compounds and identified a potent class of compounds that selectively slows down this protein’s activity.

Professor Gunter von Minckwitz, from the German Breast Group Forschungs GmBH, Neu-Isenburg set out to investigate the expression of a protein, known as poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase - or PARP, in various hormone receptor subtypes of early breast cancer, with the hopes of predicting a total response to chemotherapy given before surgery.

Even small errors made by cells during protein production can have profound disease effects, and nature has developed ways to uncover these mistakes and correct them. Though in the case of one essential protein building block—the amino acid alanine—nature has been extra careful, developing not one, but two checkpoints in her effort to make sure that this component is used correctly.

University of Dublin researchers David Knowles and Aoife McLysaght, of the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, have identified three uniquely human genes that are not found in any other species.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new process for determining the structure of proteins, which relies on an intense beam of light generated at the Advance Light Source (ALS) facility also on site - and shortens the typical time required to identify unknown biomolecules from years to just weeks.

One-third of eukaryotic proteins are integrated within membranes, as are the targets of 40% of approved drugs. However, the lack of a general means of solubilizing, stabilizing and structurally characterizing these active membrane proteins has frustrated efforts to understand their mechanisms and exploit their potential value.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the hundreds of bacteria that colonize the human intestinal tract, usually causing no apparent harm - perhaps even being beneficial to its host. However, once the immune system of the host is weakened by an illness or surgical procedure - P. aeruginosa can cause infection, inflammation, sepsis and death.