Until now, the inability to produce enough high-quality recombinant complex has hindered scientists from obtaining the structural information necessary to fully understand the molecular function of the general transcription factor TFIID. Several groups led by the Berger team have now elucidated a high-resolution structure (11.6Å) for the core TFIID complex, a 650 kDa complex containing ten protein subunits. Their findings, published in Nature, now reveal the architecture of the core TFIID and answer several long-standing questions about TFIID.