In Science's early online edition, Roland Riek from ETH Zürich led work that studied the role of functional amyloid proteins, more often associated with diseases like Alzheimer's. Scanning 42 peptide and protein hormones in vitro, they found that most could form amyloids. Subsequent biochemical analysis showed that peptide and protein hormones in secretory granules of the endocrine system are stored in an amyloid-like cross beta-sheet-rich conformation, they say in the abstract.