In a study appearing in Nucleic Acids Research, UC Davis College of Biological Sciences researchers identify and show how two molecular partners affect the overall assembly and structure of the breast cancer protein BRCA2.

Keith Fraga won a Office of Science Graduate Student Research award, which gives Ph.D. students the opportunity to conduct research at a DOE national laboratory. Mary-Francis LaPorte won the DOE’s Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, which helps train next-generation leaders in computational science.

Chancellor Gary S. May and Mark Winey, dean of the College of Biological Sciences, recently cut the ribbon on a new cryo-EM facility in Briggs Hall. The $2.5 million microscope is open to all campus researchers. It can collect thousands of images a day to assemble into movies showing how proteins and other biomolecules do their work.

In order to generate energy, our bodies transfer electrons from food—sugars, fats and proteins—to molecular oxygen, which allows our cells to respire and function. Performed by the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC), this process creates ATP, the “molecular currency” for energy in the cell. In a Molecular Cell study, Assistant Professor James Letts, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and colleagues reveal further nuances of the ETC.

In a new study appearing in Nature Cell Biology, UC Davis researchers found that tau molecules can congregate together in a novel, reversible way, which appears to be distinct from the irreversible tangle formation observed in neurodegenerative diseases.

In Richard McKenney’s lab, Wenzhe Li studies the motor protein cytoplasmic dynein. Aided by her interest in psychology, Li aims to link cellular and molecular biology processes to mind and behavior. For her work, she was awarded the Ronald and Lydia Baskin Research Award.

A parasitic amoeba that causes severe gut disease in humans protects itself from attack by biting off pieces of host cells and putting their proteins on its own surface, according to a study by microbiologists at the University of California, Davis.

Ian Haydon’s entrance into science writing occurred in whirlwind fashion. As a graduate student, he was intent on obtaining a Ph.D. but also knew he was more interested in careers outside of academic research. He then found science writing.

In a new study appearing in Nature, Assistant Professor Nitzan Shabek and his colleagues add structural definition to the strigolactone signaling process in plants.

Microtubule fibers are hollow rods made of much smaller tubulin subunits that spontaneously assemble at one end of the rod, but exactly how they do this inside the crowded environment of living cells has been a mystery. UC Davis researchers have uncovered the mechanism that puts these blocks in place, illustrated in a new animation.