Seeing, smelling, tasting, regulation of blood pressure – molecular switches are involved in all of these processes. The mechanism with which these proteins are switched off has been analysed by a research team at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), headed by Prof Dr Klaus Gerwert and private lecturer Dr Carsten Kötting. With the aid of infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and computer simulations, they described the process at the subatomic level. The researchers published their report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).