Three University of Massachusetts Amherst scientists have received a four-year, $1.2 million EUREKA grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study folding and misfolding of secretory proteins in the cell’s protein factory, the endoplasmic reticulum, where misfolding can lead to diseases such as cystic fibrosis and liver cirrhosis…

How does a cell manage to identify and degrade the diverse types of defective proteins and thus protect the body against serious diseases? The researchers Sabine C. Horn, Professor Thomas Sommer, Professor Udo Heinemann and Dr. Ernst Jarosch of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, have now found a crucial piece in this puzzle…

Sections of proteins previously thought to be disordered may in fact have an unexpected biological role – providing certain proteins room to move – according to a study published by researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in this month’s issue of the journal Structure (Cell Press).