CHAPEL HILL, NC – In the continuing effort to improve upon opioid pain relievers, American and Chinese scientists used cryoEM technology to solve the detailed structures of the entire family of opioid receptors bound to their naturally occurring peptides. Subsequent structure-guided biochemical studies were then performed to better understand the mechanisms of peptide-receptor selectivity and … Continued

The UNC School of Medicine lab of Bryan L. Roth, MD, PhD, solved the high-resolution, complex structures of drug-like compounds bound to designer brain cell receptors, paving the way for the creation of next-generation chemogenetic tools. Postdoc Shicheng Zhang, PhD, led this research published in Nature. Read More

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered a new checkpoint that cells use to control what molecules they internalize. Understanding the determinants for entry into cells could lead to the design of better therapeutics that must enter through this gatekeeping mechanism. Read More … Continued

Dr. Jonathan Fay, in collaboration with Jared Peck and Dr. Joshua Strauss of the UNC CH CryoEM Core, published a method paper in IUCrJ (International Union of Crystallography Journal) outlining their success in optimizing the function of a microscope for cryogenic electron microscopy (CryoEM). CryoEM is an imaging technique that yields 3D structures of large macromolecular complexes, … Continued

Ever wonder what’s going on when you get itchy skin, whether from a rash or medication or some other bodily reaction? And why do some strong anti-itching medications make us nauseous, dry-mouthed zombies? Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and the University of California at San Francisco conducted research showing in precise detail how … Continued

Biochemistry and biophysics PhD student, Cathy Spangler, researches in Robert McGinty’s lab and recently published a paper in collaboration with Joshua Boyer, Joshua Strauss, Andrew Cesmat, Pengda Liu, Robert McGinty, and Qi Zhang, titled Structural basis of nucleosome-dependent cGAS inhibition. This article addresses the use of cryo-electron microscopy to determine the high-resolution structure of a DNA-sensing protein called cGAS bound … Continued

For two days (December 16-17, 2019) Structural Biologists, from across the Piedmont, attended the first ever 2019 Triangle Area Cryo-EM Symposium in Durham, NC. The event, funded in part by an Interdisciplinary Colloquium Grant from the Duke School of Medicine, allowed researchers from Duke University, North Carolina University at Chapel Hill and the National Institute … Continued

The School of Medicine is hosting an open house for the UNC CryoEM core facility on Friday, November 8th from 3pm-5pm in Glaxo Room 008.

Kathryn Gunn is a post-doctoral researcher in the Neher Lab of the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department within the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She is a new client of ITS Research Computing. Read more!

Installation of a Thermo Scientific Talos Arctica 200 Kv cryo-transmission electron microscope (cryo-TEM) is nearly complete in the Glaxo Research Building at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Once functioning this summer, this $3-million instrument will bring exciting new capabilities to researchers across the university and others in the RTP area. Read more!