We are all depressed about science funding, here is the answer to our problems.

Anti-depressants are widely prescribed by medical doctors in the Western world in an attempt to fight depression. Recently two groups independently crystalized Na-amino acid carriers with desipramine. What is so cool about these atomic resolution pictures of drug binding is that the substrates are occluded, but the desipramine displaces the 2 water molecules that are in the normal occluded conformation, forcing a salt bridge to be installed. This salt bridge in turn blocks the transport catalytic cycle. So X-ray crystallography is useful after all? Reading these lovely papers certainly took my blues away.

LeuT-desipramine structure reveals how antidepressants block neurotransmitter reuptake.
Zhou, et al., Science (2007) 317:1387-1890. The pic is taken from their Figure 2.

Antidepressant binding site in a bacterial homologue of neurotransmitter transporters.
Singh, et al., Nature (2007) 448:952-956. see also Nature 437, 215–223 (2005) by the same group.

Pavarotti died today.

The greatest tenor of our era died of cancer. He came to Philadelphia often, as he was friends with Riccardo Muti (the former conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra). Pavarotti became a super star after singing with Joan Sutherland in Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment at Covent Garden (and then the Met). He sang (effortlessly) the challenging solo with 9 high C's. Listen to some Pavarotti this week, it will make your science go better, even though you will feel sad at our loss.