The HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env) mediates cell entry and is the target of the host humoral immune response. Functional Env is a trimer of noncovalent gp120-gp41 heterodimers. Rational trimer design has transformed the HIV-1 vaccine research field and has helped understand Env structure and immunogenicity. Uncleaved prefusion-optimized (UFO) trimers have been shown to stabilize diverse HIV-1 Env glycoproteins.

Alzheimer’s disease has a higher incidence in women. This sex difference was associated with a modification of certain proteins of the immune system. According to a recent study, the drop in estrogen with menopause increased the expression in the brain of a neurotransmitter, nitric oxide (NO), generating the S-nitrosylation of complement factor C3 (abbreviated SNO-C3), which activated the microglia.

The 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University, to Morten Meldal of the University of Copenhagen, and – for the second time – to Barry Sharpless of The Scripps Research Institute “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”

Click chemistry, the Nobel Committee’s Olof Ramström told reporters while announcing the prize, “is almost like it sounds – it’s all about linking different molecules.”

He likened click chemistry to a seatbelt buckle, whose interlocking parts can be attached to many different materials, linking them by snapping the two parts of the buckle together.

“The problem was to find good chemical buckles,” Ramström said – chemicals that “will easily snap together, and importantly, they won’t snap with anything else.”