Center For Structural Biology

Recent work from collaborators Ray Blind, Lucia Rameh, and John York has provided the first comprehensive analysis of inositol phosphate regulation of mTOR and mTORC1, increasing our kinetic understanding of mTOR kinase activity and providing a tool to modulate mTOR/mTORC1 in cells. Read More

Doug Kojetin, associate professor of biochemistry, and a collaborator from the Guangzhou Laboratory, use NMR and crystallography to elucidate the binding pose of GW9662 and T0070907 cobound with synthetic ligands for the first time. Read More

A newly determined structure from the lab of Yi Ren reveals information about the mRNA export pathway and suggests that herpes viruses could hijack that interaction to infect their host. The new structures also reveal how certain mutations in the protein complex could play a role in cancers. Read More

As a fifth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry Graduate Program, Jenny focuses on dissecting the allostery involved in heme biosynthesis initiation using an integrated structural biology approach in the lab of Professor Breann Brown. Her work has led to collaborations with other Vanderbilt labs, including the labs of Jens Meiler, John Yang and Jason MacGurn. Read More

It’s often the simplest and most informal of invitations that can open a world of endless possibilities and lifelong relationships. That’s how Professor Jens Meiler’s extraordinary scientific journey began in the lab of Nobel Prize winner David Baker. What has he made of the opportunities presented to him that day? Read More

The Center for Structural Biology in the School of Medicine Basic Sciences will be a hub of research innovation using Carterra’s platform in traditional and AI-driven workflows for characterizing both antibodies and other biomolecules Read More

Research from Teru Nakagawa, professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, describes intricacies of normal brain function with implications for our understanding of brain injury and recovery: A decrease in pH can modify a neurotransmitter receptor’s structure, thereby modulating its location and kinetics. Read More

In a recent episode of Smarter Every Day, YouTube sensation and host Destin Sandlin talks with Vanderbilt Professor Tina Iverson and Senior Research Associate Prashant Singh about bacterial “motors” and how they work in the microorganisms that make us sick. The video racked up more than 1.4 million views in its first day. Read More

Acanthamoeba can cause diseases blinding keratitis, an infection of the eye, or granulomatous amebic encephalitis, a generally fatal infection of the brain and spinal cord. Antifungals that target the biosynthesis of fungal sterols, such as ergosterol, are often used as treatment, but the Acanthamoeba ergosterol biosynthetic pathway has been shown to differ significantly from that found in fungi. Read More

Cryo-ET suffers from the “missing wedge” problem: as samples become more tilted, their thickness at the extremes is increased and sample penetration decreases. William Wan and collaborators describe the creation of a new subtomogram averaging package called STOPGAP. Read More