News

Insulin is a hormone that is rapidly secreted into the blood, following a meal, in order to control blood glucose levels. These pulses of insulin secretion enable the body to take up and store sugar and quickly return blood glucose to normal levels. Diabetes, which affects 1 in 10 people in Europe, occurs when this process goes wrong.The endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a protein-producing compartment…

Radioactive isotopes offer excellent treatments for cancers that have spread. The ILL is working with other institutions to produce and test a potentially new clinical radioisotope, terbium-161, that promises to be more effective in killing cancer cells than similar radioisotopes currently in clinical use. Isotopes that emit short-range radiation in the form of electrons or alpha particles offer …

Neutron reflectometry reveals SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces lipid stripping from cell membrane, leading to a greater understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection mechanisms and potential therapeutics. 22 July 2021Scientists at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), in …

An experimental-computational approach develops a structurally stable model of the KaiABC complex and reveals a hitherto elusive mechanism in cyanobacterial circadian regulationAn international research team, including Kyoto University, ExCELLS, QST (Japan), the Institut Laue-Langevin, ILL (France…

Research has demonstrated the likely critical membrane fusion mechanism involved when the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infects human cells.SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is from a family of single-stranded positive sense RNA viruses named β-coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 and oth…

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a human opportunistic pathogen that causes severe infections in immunocompromised patients. P. aeruginosa and other pathogenic bacteria use several virulence factors to promote their infectivity, including sugar-binding proteins.Teams of researchers at CERMAV (CNRS) and t…

11th October 2018: Grenoble, France – Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) the world’s flagship neutron facility, hosts the global neutron community in its hometown to discuss the future of neutron science in Europe and highlight cutting-edge research in the field. Neutron science is critical to Europe’s scientific impact. The ILL has enabled globally significant research in this field for over 50 years,…

AAA+ ATPases are a large family of ubiquitous enzymes with multiple tasks, including the remodelling of the cellular proteome, i.e. the ensemble of proteins in a biological cell. A subfamily, so-called unfoldases, recognize, unfold, and address misfolded or dysfunctional proteins towards proteolyt…

Credit: Institut Laue-Langevin/ University of Leicester An international research team led by the University of Leicester has made a breakthrough advance by trapping an intermediate in the mechanism of enzymes called heme peroxidases and determining its structure u…

Credit: MPI-ILL 5.09.2016Understanding microbe adaptation to extreme environments remains a challenge of high biotechnological potential—in bioremediation and waste management, for example.Halomonas microorganisms isolated from the oceans or salt marshes, reversibl…

Pictorial sketch of a biomimetic membrane interacting with Aβ peptides: (A) Aβ peptides in the membrane-active structured-oligomer state (Membrane filling); (B) Aβ peptides in the monomeric state: (B1) monomers embroider the membrane and (B2) peptide oligomerization takes place next to membrane s…

Neutron reflectometry reveals SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces lipid stripping from cell membrane, leading to a greater understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection mechanisms and potential therapeutics. 22 July 2021Scientists at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), in colla…