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Meet Voltage-Dependent Anionic Channel! Scientists call it by its nickname, VDAC. VDAC lives in the mitochondria (that's right: the powerhouse of the cell), specifically in the outer membrane. It's the most abundant protein in the outer mitochondrial membrane and it is present in every single mitochondrion on earth. VDAC is found in the outer mitochondrial …
In honor of Plastic Free July, allow me to introduce PETase! PETase is an enzyme that eats plastic. Specifically, it dines on polyethylene terephthalate, the kind of plastic that most "disposable" water bottles are made of. from PDB 5XJH PETase was recently discovered (in 2016) in species of bacteria called Ideonella sakaiensis. It's believed that …
Have you ever been sick with strep-throat? Pneumonia? Food poisoning? A UTI? You visit your doctor and she says your illness is a bacterial infection, so she is prescribing you some antibiotics. She instructs you to take your entire round of antibiotics, all the way to the last dose, even if you start feeling better. …
You may have heard of Cas9 before in discussions and news about gene editing with CRISPR! (The two women who established how to use CRISPR-Cas9 in the lab won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.) In nature, CRISPR is a bacterial acquired immune system. It recognizes invading DNA, like from viruses for example, and "saves" …
Julia Migliore 