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Featured Citations

Integrase anchors viral RNA to the HIV-1 capsid interior. Singer MR, Li Z et al. Nature. 2026 Apr 23;652(8111):1068–1075.

The E3 ubiquitin ligase mechanism specifying targeted microRNA degradation. Farnung J, Slobodyanyuk E et al. Nature. 2026 Apr 16;652(8110):784–793.

Non-equilibrium snapshots of ligand efficacy at the μ-opioid receptor. Robertson MJ, Modak A et al. Nature. 2026 Apr 16;652(8110):794–802.

The dynamic basis of G-protein recognition and activation by a GPCR. Kobayashi K, Kawakami K et al. Nature. 2026 Apr 16;652(8110):812–821.

Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape. Springstein BL, Javoor MG et al. Science. 2026 Apr 16;392(6795):eaea6343.

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News

December 25, 2025

computer generated image
The RBVI wishes you a safe and happy holiday season! See our 2025 card and the gallery of previous cards back to 1985.

December 16, 2025

The ChimeraX 1.11 production release is available! See the change log for what's new.

November 21, 2025

The ChimeraX 1.11 release candidate is available – please try it and report any issues. See the change log for what's new. This will be the last release to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and its derivatives.

Previous news...

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UCSF ChimeraX

UCSF ChimeraX (or simply ChimeraX) is the next-generation molecular visualization program from the Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics (RBVI), following UCSF Chimera. ChimeraX can be downloaded free of charge for academic, government, nonprofit, and personal use. Commercial users, please see ChimeraX commercial licensing.

ChimeraX is developed with support from National Institutes of Health R01-GM129325.

Bluesky logo ChimeraX on Bluesky: @chimerax.ucsf.edu

Feature Highlight

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Morphing Movie

Morphing between atomic structures can be calculated wih the morph command and played back in an animation. This movie shows morphing between two conformations of the FGFR1 kinase domain:

  • inactive structure (PDB 3c4f, chain A)
  • activated structure (PDB 3gqi, chain A) with phosphorylated tyrosines and bound ATP analog
The tyrosine side chains and ATP analog are color-coded by element: light blue carbon, red oxygen, blue nitrogen, and orange phosphorus.

Morphing and other setup was done with the command file kmorph-prep.cxc, followed by interactively positioning the structure and saving the view with the command view name p1 (generally a session would also be saved at this point), then running kmorph-play.cxc to add 2D labels and record the movie.

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Example Image

potassium channel

Potassium Channel-Calmodulin Complex

KCNQ1 is the pore-forming subunit of a cardiac potassium channel. It binds to calmodulin, and mutations in either of these proteins can cause congenital long QT syndrome, a dangerous propensity for irregular heartbeats. In the image, a structure of the KCNQ1/calmodulin complex (PDB 5vms) has been assembled into the native tetrameric form with the sym command. The view is from the cytoplasmic side, with KCNQ1 shown as surfaces, calmodulin as cartoons, and calcium ions as balls. A pastel palette from ColorBrewer has been used to color the surfaces, darkened with color modify for the cartoons, and “rotated” 45° in hue for the ions. See the command file colormod.cxc.

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