In an article published in Medical Xpress, Georgia Tech researchers from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry discussed the cryo-electron microscopy technology behind an important research discovery that could help create new drugs to lower "bad" cholesterol and hopefully prevent heart attacks and stroke.

Associate Professor Aditi Das and Professor MG Finn explained in an email that cryo-electron microscopy technology represents a revolution in biology and biochemistry because it allows scientists to determine the structures of biological molecules in great detail.

"When we know their structures, we have a big clue as to how they work, how to fix them if they are defective, or how to stop them if they cause harm. Nature is the supreme molecular architect, and we need techniques like cryo-EM to see the details of what she builds," Finn explained.

Research with this tool is going to have serious health benefits, the NIH said, because it allowed them for the first time to see how "bad" cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol or LDL-C, builds up in the body, and causes heart attacks and strokes in people who have genetically high LDL cholesterol.

Georgia Tech has received a rapid grant of more than $86,000 from the National Science Foundation to study air-monitoring data the university conducted during the BioLab incident in Rockdale County this fall. Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences deployed a mobile monitoring station at the city of Conyers' request shortly after the fire started on Sept. 29. The blaze lasted about two and a half weeks, created a plume of chemicals that wafted over the county and parts of metro Atlanta, and has prompted more than 20 class-action lawsuits blaming the company for illnesses and business closures.

Professor Greg Huey and his research group plan to calibrate and study the data, make it accessible to the public, identify as many compounds as possible that were in the plume, and prioritize reviews based on toxicity.

(This story also appeared at Atlanta Business Chronicle.)

Lipid-protein interactions are crucial for virtually all biological processes in living cells. However, existing structural databases focusing on these interactions are limited to integral membrane proteins. A systematic understanding of diverse lipid-protein interactions also encompassing lipid-anchored, peripheral membrane and soluble lipid binding proteins remains to be elucidated. 

To address this gap and facilitate the research of universal lipid-protein assemblies, researchers including School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Assistant Professor Andrew C. McShan developed BioDolphin — a curated database with over 127,000 lipid-protein interactions. BioDolphin provides comprehensive annotations, including protein functions, protein families, lipid classifications, lipid-protein binding affinities, membrane association type, and atomic structures.