Featured series 
Tag: Protein
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Science & Tech
Dissecting the ‘undruggable’
Researchers at Harvard have designed new, highly selective tools that can add or remove sugars from a protein with no off-target effects, to examine exactly what the sugars are doing and engineer them into new treatments for “undruggable” proteins.
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Science & Tech
Innovative tool offers hope for children with rapid-aging disease
Several hundred children worldwide live with progeria, a deadly premature aging disease.
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Health
Probing protein diversity
A team of researchers has found that the stability plays a key role in the evolution of different protein structures.
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Health
Toward genetic editing
Led by David Liu, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, a team of Harvard researchers developed a system that uses commercially available molecules called cationic lipids to deliver genome-editing proteins into cells.
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Health
Neurons at work
Using genetic tools to implant genes that produce fluorescent proteins in the DNA of transparent C. elegans worms, Harvard scientists have been able to shed light on neuron-specific “alternative splicing,” a process that allows a single gene to produce many different proteins.
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Health
Viewing how neurons work
A new technique for observing neural activity will allow scientists to stimulate neurons and observe their firing pattern in real time. Tracing those neural pathways can help researchers answer questions about how neural signals propagate, and could one day allow doctors to design individualized treatments for a host of disorders.
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Health
‘On’ switches for cells
Scientists at Harvard have identified a previously unknown embryonic signal, dubbed Toddler, that instructs cells to move and reorganize themselves, through a process known as gastrulation, into three layers.
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Health
A foundation for future research
Harvard researchers recently developed the most detailed “specificity profile” for Cas9 — a “machine” made of protein and RNA that can be programmed to target specific DNA sequences and to precisely cut, paste, and turn on or turn off genes. Future researchers will use the data when developing genetic tools and therapies.
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Health
Following the swarm
Australian scientist Stephen Simpson’s locust research has led to insights on human nutrition.
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Health
Molecular motion in detail
In a critical breakthrough in unraveling how molecular “motors” ferry proteins and nutrients through cells, Harvard scientists have produced high-resolution images that show how the chemical “foot” of dynein — one of the most complex, but least understood such motors — binds to microtubules, the cellular structures it travels on.
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Health
Link found between ALS and SMA
Scientists have long known the main proteins that lead to the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), respectively. Now research shows that these two motor neuron diseases likely share a pathway that leads to the development of disease.
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Health
Turing was right
Researchers at Harvard have shown that Nodal and Lefty — two proteins linked to the regulation of asymmetry in vertebrates and the development of precursor cells for internal organs — fit a mathematical model first described by Alan Turing six decades ago.
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Health
Genetic mechanics
As reported in the online version of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology on Feb. 5, researchers have produced 3-D images of the protein system that works to repair DNA. The images reveal that the proteins can actually alter their shape in what amounts to a genetic “pat-down,” or a way for the mechanism to identify…
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Health
Where (tiny) form follows function
A professor studies how the structure of large proteins influences how we feel heat, examining how the proteins behave and interact with molecules around them.
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Health
Harvard serves up its own ‘Plate’
The Healthy Eating Plate, a visual guide that provides a blueprint for eating a healthy meal, was unveiled today by Harvard nutrition experts.
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Health
Cell’s linchpin protein found
After decades of failed efforts, researchers have discovered, through a combination of digital database mining and laboratory assays, the linchpin protein that drives mitochondria’s calcium machinery.
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Health
The improbable appears promising
A section of the AIDS virus’ protein envelope once considered an improbable target for a vaccine now appears to be one of the most promising, new research by Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists indicates.
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Health
Protein that helps battle HIV
Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard find that elevated levels of p21, a protein best known as a cancer fighter, may be involved in the immune system’s ability to control HIV infection.
