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Featured Citations

Harnessing viral strategies to reverse cognitive dysfunction through the integrated stress response. Reineke LC, Zhu PJ et al. Science. 2026 Apr 2;392(6793):eaea8782.

DefensePredictor: A machine learning model to discover prokaryotic immune systems. DeWeirdt PC, Mahoney EM, Laub MT. Science. 2026 Apr 2;392(6793):eadv7924.

A pore-forming antiphage defence is activated by oligomeric phage proteins. Patel PH, McCarthy MR et al. Nature. 2026 Mar 26;651(8107):1060–1067.

Bacterial immune activation via supramolecular assembly with phage triggers. Zhang T, Lyu Y et al. Nature. 2026 Mar 26;651(8107):1051–1059.

Progressive coevolution of the yeast centromere and kinetochore. Helsen J, Ramachandran K et al. Nature. 2026 Mar 26;651(8107):1012–1019.

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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.

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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

man and molecule

Virtual Reality

ChimeraX virtual reality works with HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Odyssey systems (those supported by SteamVR). Any structures, maps, etc. that can be displayed in ChimeraX can be viewed in the headset and manipulated with the hand controllers. Icon toolbars visible in the headset allow changing the scene display or hand-controller button assignments with a single click. Besides rotation, translation, and zooming, useful functions include labeling, distance measurement, bond rotation, placing markers into a map, and changing map contour levels. Virtual-reality (VR) mode can be turned on and off with the vr command, and the meeting command allows multiple users to share a single session in VR.

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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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