Venoms of spiders and wasps contain acylpolyamines that act as high-affinity blockers of ionotropic receptors for glutamate, the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the human central nervous system (CNS). The first representative of acylpolyamines, argiopin from the venom of the orb-weaver spider Argiope lobata, was discovered in 1986 by Eugene Grishin’s team at IBCh RAS. Here, an international team of scientists, including a researcher from IBCh RAS, has used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to determine the first atomic structure of an argiopin-glutamate receptor complex. This structure will help to design new drugs for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The study is published in Neuron.

Russian scientists together with colleagues from Sweden and the USA developed red fluorescent tags that are safe for nanoscopy in living cells. This work was funded by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), and the results are published in Nature Methods journal.

One of the directions of the Molecular Technologies Laboratory is the development of new tools for bioimaging and optogenetics. Yulia Ermakova, Vsevolod Belousov and other lab members, in an article in Chemical Communications, describe a new member of SypHer family of genetically encoded pH indicators, SypHer3s.

Dear Colleagues! We are very pleased to invite you to participate in the International Conference “BIOMEMBRANES 2018”, which will be held on October 1-5, 2018 at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, Russia.

On Friday, September 7 at 14:00 in the Small Hall, the General Seminar of the IBCh RAS will be held. The lecture will be delivered by prof. Michael Gutchev from Bonn University, Germany.