News
PDB-101 Focus: Peak Performance
05/14 
Since 2014, PDB-101 has focused on different topics to help build a collection molecular stories around a particular theme, Past topics have included cancer and diabetes.
In 2024, PDB-101 will highlight the structural stories of Peak Performance: the structural biology of athletics and well-being.
Athletes require bodies that are the best that is possible, all the way from molecules to muscles. By understanding the structure and function of our molecules, athletes can ensure that they are performing at their peak. This knowledge also informs the ways that we all can live our best lives, at all stages of our lives.
Visit the PDB-101 Browser for more.
Vitamins are exotic molecules that are essential for the proper function of cells, but somewhere along the process of evolution, our bodies have lost the ability to make them. So instead, we need to obtain them in our diet, or in a daily multivitamin tablet. These include vitamin A, which is used to build the light sensors in our eyes, a host of B vitamins used to build specialized tools for chemical reactions, and vitamin C, which plays an essential role in construction of collagen. Vitamin D is an exceptional case: our cells can make it, but only if there is enough sunlight. The ultraviolet rays in sunlight break down a form of cholesterol in our skin to make the vitamin. In cloudy climates, however, people can go for months without sun, and the vitamin must instead be obtained in the diet.
