In a collaboration between Delft University of Technology (PI: Duncan McMillan), University of Osaka (PI: Christoph Gerle), and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (PI: Dirk Bald), a new approach for researching membrane proteins has been developed. These proteins have key functions in living cells, e.g. in signal transduction and energy metabolism, and are prominent drug targets. But they are often tricky to handle, making their investigation and application difficult. The new approach in particular simplifies the integration of purified membrane proteins into artificial membranes. At VU, Amer Asseri, Holger Lill and Dirk Bald contributed to this publication in ACS Central Science.