January 2008

Use of amyloid inhibitors cautioned

Brian Shoichet, PhD, School of Pharmacy faculty member and Brian Feng, PhD, former staff research associate with the School, and colleagues have discovered that many amyloid inhibitors, which scientists had hoped would keep "sticky" amyloid protein fibers such as those associated with Alzheimer's disease from aggregating in brain tissue, actually clump together themselves.

Sali and colleagues advance understanding of proteins

School of Pharmacy faculty member and computational biologist Andrej Sali, PhD, and international colleagues have developed new techniques to reveal the architecture of large protein complexes within cells. Their ultimate goal is to see how these complexes interact in real time—however fleeting the encounters.