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Nature 414, 23-24 (1 November 2001) | doi:10.1038/35102126

See potassium run

Christopher Miller

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Nearly all cells have membranes spanned by potassium-conducting channel proteins, without which your nerves (and much else) simply wouldn't work. Ion permeation through these channels can now be seen in dazzling detail.

Scientific discovery has its breakthroughs, and breakthroughs their aftermaths. Three years ago, Roderick MacKinnon's group at Rockefeller University in New York achieved a stunning advance in molecular neurobiology with the first atomic-resolution picture of a potassium (K+) channel1.