MBIB News

A team of researchers developed a high-throughput drug-discovery workflow leveraging time-resolved small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) capabilities at the Advanced Light Source’s (ALS) Structurally Integrated Biology for the Life Sciences (SIBYLS) beamline to identify small molecules capable of activating biomolecular dynamics associated with a desired therapeutic outcome.

Biosciences researchers conducted the first ever structural analysis of a key protein involved in DNA damage repair and cancer. While the narrative around cancer chemotherapy has historically focused on DNA damage repair pathways, findings from this study underscore the role of RNA-mediated processes on chemotherapy response, which could have major implications for cancer treatment outcomes.

Berkeley Center for Structural Biology beamline scientists contributed their expertise to a structural study of the radioactive metal actinium led by the Chemical Sciences Division’s Rebecca Abergel.

A team that included Banumathi Sankaran of the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division studied a protein called σNS, an important component of some viral factories. Understanding how this protein works will foster development of therapeutic strategies against viruses that use similar proteins to replicate.

After years of work, an international team found evidence that a once-independent nitrogen-fixing microbe has become a permanent resident within algae cells.