The deadly toxin acrolein has a useful biological role

Scientists from RIKEN in Japan have discovered that acrolein—a toxic substance produced in cells during times of oxidative stress—in fact may play a role in preventing the process of fibrillation, an abnormal clumping of peptides that has been associated with Alzheimer's disease and other neural diseases. The key to this new role is a chemical process known as 4+4 cycloaddition, where two molecules with "backbones" made up of four-atom chains come together to form a ring-like structu