Shakhnovich

When a virus mutates, the world usually finds out the hard way. Variants of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can slip past vaccines and antibody drugs before scientists fully understand what has changed. A new study from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical...

When something goes wrong deep inside a cell’s power plant, the consequences can ripple across an entire organism. Mitochondria rely on a small molecule called coenzyme Q (CoQ) to generate energy and protect cells from damage. But the way cells...

Key Takeaways Harvard researchers have discovered the chemical mechanism by which certain salt compounds break down protein waste, like wool and feathers. The discovery enables a gentler and more sustainable protein recycling process.The textile and meat...

When the first reports of a new COVID-19 variant emerge, scientists worldwide scramble to answer a critical question: Will this new strain be more contagious or more severe than its predecessors? By the time answers arrive, it’s frequently too late to...

When Lilian Smith left Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to attend Harvard, she was eager for new experiences and a fresh start in a bigger city. She didn’t expect to ever look back. But during her junior year, a religion course on nationalism prompted her to re...

Vaibhav Mohanty ( Shakhnovich Lab) has placed first among graduate students in the American Physical Society's Division of Biological Physics (DBIO) Early Career Prize Session. Mohanty's talk, “Principles of Biophysical Fitness Landscape Design ” had been...

CCB undergraduate Constance Kraay, a member of the Shakhnovich Lab, is one of the 6 winners of the annual Undergraduate Poster Award Competition (UPAC), who recognized at the 67 th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on February 20, 2023...

How kinks in protein folding could help researchers design new drugs and even fight COVID-19 By Jordan Wilkerson Right now, your body is making trillions of proteins essential for even basic tasks. You can read this article, for example, thanks to the...

The Shakhnovich Lab finds a new function for a protein in the eye lens By Laurel Oldach, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Researchers working to understand the biochemistry of cataract formation have made a surprising finding: A...

The Harvard Gazette featured recent research from Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Eugene Shakhnovich and Amy Gilson, a graduate student in his lab. In their paper, " The role of evolutionary selection in the dynamics of protein structure...