The protein MmpL5 is an efflux transporter, a critical pump that helps the pathogen M. tuberculosis grow by scavenging essential iron. Unfortunately, overexpressed MmpL5 can also pump out bedaquiline — the first new turberculosis drug in over 40 years — making the bacteria drug-resistant. Diabling the efflux transporter of M. tuberculosis with an inhibitor would strike a double blow — restore microbial sensitivity to antibiotic bedaquiline and break the cycle that gathers scarce iron. Researchers have now solved the structure of MmpL4, a close homolog of MmpL5 that has the same function.

The ability to precisely predict movements is essential not only for humans and animals, but also for many AI applications — from autonomous driving to robotics. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now discovered that artificial neural networks can perform this task better when trained with biological data from early visual system development.

University of Missouri study challenges assumptions about biodiversity near Earth’s first reef systems.

With support from a three-year, $1.85 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (“Role of TBX2 in the establishment of the Prostate Cancer Pre-Metastatic Niche (PMN) in the Bone”), Srinivas Nandana, Ph.D., and Manisha Tripathi, Ph.D., from the Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry at the TTUHSC School of Medicine seek to advance the understanding of prostate cancer metastasis by investigating the role of TBX2 in establishing the prostate cancer premetastatic niche in bone.