When Gang Ren whirls the controls of his cryo-electron microscope, he compares it to fine-tuning the gearshift and brakes of a racing bicycle. But this machine at Berkeley Lab is a bit more complex. It costs nearly $1.5 million, operates at the frigid temperature of liquid nitrogen, and it is allowing scientists to see what no one has seen before. He and his colleague Lei Zhang are reporting the first 3-D images of an individual protein ever obtained with enough clarity to determine its structure.

An essential relationship among leading genes and proteins that control the health of the skin has been revealed by a multinational research team. The protein p63 is the “master regulator” for skin’s uppermost layers, the epidermis. It does much of its work by directly controlling the chromatin-remodeling protein Satb1, discovered at Berkeley Lab over a decade ago and already known for critical roles in the immune system and aggressive breast cancer.

Scientists have developed the first comprehensive catalog of the genetic aberrations responsible for an aggressive type of ovarian cancer that accounts for 70 percent of all ovarian cancer deaths. Hundreds of researchers from more than 80 institutions, including scientists from Berkeley Lab, deciphered the genome structure and gene expression patterns in high-grade serous ovarian adenocarcinomas from almost 500 patients. The result is the most expansive genomic analysis of any cancer to date and a major step toward the personalized treatment of ovarian cancer.

Berkeley Lab scientists have engineered a universal, highly sensitive technique for detecting misfolded proteins in biological fluids. This groundbreaking nanoscience capability could help pinpoint Alzheimer’s in its early stages and enable researchers to discover new therapies for this devastating disease.

In a development that could lead to better antibiotics, scientists from several institutions including Berkeley Lab derived atomic-scale resolution structures of the cell’s protein-making machine, the ribosome, at key stages of its job. The structures reveal that the ribosome’s ability to rotate an incredible amount without falling apart is due to the never-before-seen springiness of molecular widgets that hold it together.

Once called “junk DNA” because it contains numerous repeated short sequences that don’t code for proteins, heterochromatin is in fact vital for normal growth and function. Yet it poses special challenges to accurate DNA repair. Berkeley Lab life scientists have discovered an unsuspected and dramatic process by which double-strand breaks in heterochromatin are repaired in dynamic stages.

The structure of the DNA-slicing protein FEN1, an essential player in human DNA replication, has been solved by an international team of life scientists led by researchers at Berkeley Lab and the Scripps Research Institute. FEN1 cuts the “flaps” leftover when new fragments of DNA are assembled during replication and also plays a role in DNA repair. Its protein structure reveals the surprising mechanism behind FEN1’s speed, accuracy, and versatility.

In a discovery that could lead to new ways to fight cancer and other diseases such as cystic fibrosis, scientists from Berkeley Lab and the Scripps Research Institute determined that a cell’s speedy ability to repair damaged DNA relies on the remarkable flexibility of a molecular motor. The discovery was made at the Advanced Light Source.

A tiny motor tasked with one of nature’s biggest jobs is now better understood. The molecular machinery that helps export messenger RNA from a cell’s nucleus has been structurally mapped at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source. Messenger RNA conveys genetic information from the nucleus to the cell’s cytoplasm, where it guides the synthesis of proteins — the workhorses of biology.

It’s not quite Jurassic Park, but who wants Paleozoic scorpions scurrying around anyway? Scientists used a powerful microscope at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source to detect remnants of protein and chitin in the exoskeleton of a 417-million-year-old fossil of an extinct mega-scorpion, a discovery that is several hundred million years older than previously thought possible.