{"id":223863,"date":"2025-10-24T03:17:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T08:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/rare-blue-proteins-from-cold-adapted-microbes-could-serve-as-prototypes-for-molecular-on-off-switches"},"modified":"2025-10-24T03:17:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T08:17:47","slug":"rare-blue-proteins-from-cold-adapted-microbes-could-serve-as-prototypes-for-molecular-on-off-switches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/rare-blue-proteins-from-cold-adapted-microbes-could-serve-as-prototypes-for-molecular-on-off-switches","title":{"rendered":"Rare blue proteins from cold-adapted microbes could serve as prototypes for molecular on-off switches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rare-blue-proteins-from-cold-adapted-microbes-could-serve-as-prototypes-for-molecular-on-off-switches.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Imagine the magnificent glaciers of Greenland, the eternal snow of the Tibetan high mountains, and the permanently ice-cold groundwater in Finland. As cold and beautiful as these are, for the structural biologist Kirill Kovalev, they are more importantly home to unusual molecules that could control brain cells\u2019 activity.<\/p>\n<p>Kovalev, EIPOD Postdoctoral Fellow at EMBL Hamburg\u2019s Schneider Group and EMBL-EBI\u2019s Bateman Group, is a physicist passionate about solving biological problems. He is particularly hooked by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/embletc\/issue-99\/molecular-solar-panels-can-help-scientists-control-brain-cells\/\" target=\"_blank\">rhodopsins<\/a>, a group of colorful proteins that enable aquatic microorganisms to harness sunlight for energy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my work, I search for unusual rhodopsins and try to understand what they do,\u201d said Kovalev. \u201cSuch molecules could have undiscovered functions that we could benefit from.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine the magnificent glaciers of Greenland, the eternal snow of the Tibetan high mountains, and the permanently ice-cold groundwater in Finland. As cold and beautiful as these are, for the structural biologist Kirill Kovalev, they are more importantly home to unusual molecules that could control brain cells\u2019 activity. Kovalev, EIPOD Postdoctoral Fellow at EMBL Hamburg\u2019s [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}