Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Misfolded tau proteins spread between cells and form toxic clumps that drive Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and more. HHMI Investigator Roy Parker's team at University of Colorado Boulder tracked tau doing this in real time, then guided a quality-control protein directly to these aggregates. In mouse models, it reduced damage and improved brain function — an early but promising step toward new therapies: bit.ly/4aklodm.

📸: A neuron with clumps of tau (bright dots). Courtesy Kathleen McCann, Parker Lab.

How A Rogue Tau Protein Drives Destruction — and How it Might be Stopped | HHMI Drawing on decades of research on RNA-binding proteins, HHMI Investigator Roy Parker uncovered how misfolded tau proteins team up with them — fueling the formation of toxic protein clumps that drive neurodegenerative disease.

100+ years after “Hechtian structures” were discovered, HHMI Investigator José Dinneny & colleagues at Stanford University have uncovered the purpose of the tiny anchors that secure plant cell membranes to their walls. Plants with more of these structures recover better from water stress — a finding that could help scientists improve crops' drought resistance: bit.ly/3Q7hVbh.

📸: Arabidopsis thaliana, grown in the Dinneny lab. Courtesy Yue Rui.