A key step in the processing of HIV within cells appears to affect how effectively the immune system's killer T cells can recognize and destroy infected cells. Researchers at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have found that – as HIV proteins are broken down within cells, a process that should lead to labeling infected cell for destruction by CD8 T cells – there is a great variability in the stability of resulting protein segments, variations that could significantly change how well cells are recognized by the immune system. Their report appears in the June Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Leicester have discovered animals searching for food do not stick to a complicated pattern of movement as previously thought but tend to wander about randomly.

An international team of researchers led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has deciphered the genome of a tropical marine organism known to produce substances potentially useful against human diseases.