FOCAL POINT Feng Ye (above) and colleagues from Florida State University, the University of Illinois, The Burnham Institute, and UC San Diego resolve several long-standing controversies over the mechanism by which integrin adhesion receptors are activated to bind their extracellular matrix ligands with higher affinity. The researchers recreated the process in vitro by inserting single integrin molecules into phospholipid nanodiscs (top row). The cytoplasmic protein talin was sufficient to activate these integrins, causing them to adopt an extended conformation (bottom right) capable of binding extracellular matrix (bottom left).