Lurking in our genomes are thousands of uncharacterized protein-coding genes. Even more genes can be included in this uncharacterized category if we were to exclude general one- or…
All cells contain a network of molecular chaperones that help other proteins (often called “clients”) fold into functional three-dimensional conformations. Decades of research on chaperones has led to…
Billions of years ago, the first eukaryotic common ancestor split from its archaeal lineage with a distinct set of genes, the majority of which many of us (eukaryotes)…
In a new paper published in eLife, my colleagues in the Denic Lab and I investigated how budding yeast (S. cerevisiae) breaks down damaged peroxisome organelles through a…
MCB faculty Vlad Denic has been chosen to receive funding for a joint project with HMS professor Wade Harper from a strategic research alliance between the pharmaceutical company…
Gametes are the vessels of gene immortality. To escape the dying soma, these cells rely on a specialized form of the cell cycle in which a single round…
In the late 1970’s, the KGB inducted ricin into the “cloak and dagger” hall-of-fame by turning a more or less innocuous umbrella tip into their assassin’s weapon of…
Sometimes how you get where you’re going is as important as what you do when you get there. This is true of the proteins in our cells, whose…
The phrase “finding a needle in a haystack” refers to the difficulty of locating a specific target among a large number of very similar objects. Living cells face…
(l to r) David Pincus, Eric Solís, Vlad Denic No matter where you fall on the spectrum of libertarianism this election year, you can hopefully appreciate that the…
