Spring 2021
From the president
Washington State University President Kirk Schulz writes about new buildings will further WSU research and support for the state for COVID-19 vaccination. » More ...
Molecular biology
Spring 2010
Laboratories for the new century
First, six months of planning. Then, over the summer, came the actual moving of laboratory equipment, chemicals, papers, and all the rest. Finally, faculty, students, and staff from four separate science buildings are now under one roof in a gorgeous new facility beside Stadium Way.
“Our unit is large, with over 150 students, faculty and staff,” says John Nilson, director of the School of Molecular Biosciences. Previously, the school was fragmented, with bits of space in Fulmer Hall, Abelson (old Science), Eastlick, and Heald. “Moving from four buildings to one has already allowed unprecedented social and intellectual interactions that form … » More …
Fall 2009
The Shape of Things to Come
"Life is a process of self-assembly," says biochemist Alex Li. Proteins make up our hair and muscle, our brains and lungs, our enzymes and antibodies, and each one must attain a particular shape in order to do its work. Which they do with no outside help, following specific assembly codes built into their structure.
» More ...Spring 2009
Great promise in a nitrogen conundrum
Mike Kahn and Svetlana Yurgel, molecular biologists in Washington State University’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, have a challenge on their hands that involves one of the most abundant, but also difficult to obtain, substances on earth.
Nearly 80 percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen, and even that is only 7 percent of the total nitrogen on earth. However, most of it is locked up in rock. Only a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the total nitrogen is accessible to plants in the soil and in a form that can be used by living things.
And living things need nitrogen in a big way. Nitrogen … » More …