Key part of plants’ rapid response system revealed
A cross-Atlantic collaboration between scientists at
Washington University in St. Louis, and the European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, both
in Grenoble, France, has revealed the workings of a switch that
activates plant hormones, tags them for storage or marks them for
destruction.
Scientists characterize protein essential to survival of malaria parasite
A biology lab at Washington University in St. Louis has successfully cracked the structure of an enzyme made by Plasmodium falciparum, the parasitical protozoan that causes the most lethal form of malaria. Plasmodium cannot live without the enzyme, which is uses to make cell membrane. Because people don’t make this enzyme, it is an ideal target for an anti-malarial drug. Such a drug might kill Plasmodium but have minimal side effects for people.