Vitamin boosts essential synthetic chemistry
December 8, 2020
Inspired by light-sensing bacteria that thrive near hot oceanic vents, synthetic chemists use vitamin B12 to catalyze valuable hydrocarbons known as olefins, or alkenes, useful precursor molecules for the manufacture of drugs and agrochemicals.
Hidden structure found in essential metabolic machinery
December 4, 2020
Rice University biochemists have discovered membrane-divided subcompartments within organelles called peroxisomes, essential pieces of metabolic machinery for all higher order life from yeast to humans. The research appears this week in Nature Communications.
Chemists get peek at novel fluorescence
December 3, 2020
Rice chemists find a second level of fluorescence in single-walled carbon nanotubes. The phenomenon may be useful in solar energy and optoelectronic applications.
Rice scientist joins next Mars adventure
December 2, 2020
A Rice University geologist is one of 13 scientists recently selected to operate the Mars rover Perseverance and analyze samples for an eventual return to Earth.
Understanding frustration could lead to better drugs
November 23, 2020
Atom-scale models of proteins that incorporate ligands, like drug molecules, show a strong correlation between minimally frustrated binding sites and drug specificity. Such models could lead to better-designed drugs with fewer side effects.
Study: Early, late stages of degenerative diseases are distinct
November 23, 2020
Rice University biochemists have proposed that degenerative diseases as varied as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and muscle atrophy occur in two distinct phases marked by protein signaling changes that could result in patients responding differently to the same treatment.
Former piece of Pacific Ocean floor imaged deep beneath China
November 16, 2020
In a study that gives new meaning to the term "rock bottom," seismic researchers have discovered the underside of a rocky slab of Earth's lithosphere that has been pulled more than 400 miles beneath northeastern China by the process of tectonic subduction.
VIPs help open national security research accelerator labs
November 2, 2020
U.S. Army Futures Command Lt. Gen. Thomas Todd III and U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, joined Rice President David Leebron, Provost Reggie DesRoches and Army and Rice dignitaries for the Oct. 30 opening ceremony of the Rice University National Security Research Accelerator (RUNSRA) laboratories in Dell Butcher Hall.