Michael R. Sawaya

TL;DR: Structures of 13 of these microcrystals all reveal steric zippers, but with variations that expand the range of atomic architectures for amyloid-like fibrils and offer an atomic-level hypothesis for the basis of prion strains.

TL;DR: The atomic structure of the cross-β spine illuminates the stability of amyloid fibrils, their self-seeding characteristic and their tendency to form polymorphic structures.

TL;DR: It is discovered that exposure of cell or tissue lysates to a biotinylated isoxazole (b-isox) chemical precipitated hundreds of RNA-binding proteins with significant overlap to the constituents of RNA granules, offering a framework for understanding the function of LC sequences as well as an organizing principle for cellular structures that are not membrane bound.

TL;DR: It is found that peptide and protein hormones in secretory granules of the endocrine system are stored in an amyloid-like cross–β-sheet–rich conformation, which means functional amyloids in the pituitary and other organs can contribute to normal cell and tissue physiology.

TL;DR: This work bridges structural genomics to structural biology with a procedure for determining protein complexes of previously unknown function from any organism with a sequenced genome and its entire procedure can be scaled to a genome-wide level.