Tiny molecular tweezers have a remarkable impact on bustling proteins: Three research groups from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), the Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society in Dortmund and the Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim found that the molecular tweezers designed by Professor Frank Klärner at the UDE can be used to regulate protein - protein interactions by selectively trapping certain residues of the protein – and stick like a clothespin. The research groups of Thomas Schrader (UDE), Christian Ottmann (Chemical Genomics Centre) and Elsa Sanchez Garcia (MPI für Kohlenforschung) believe that this might be a promising approach for applications in medical research, as the water soluble tweezers act without inducing toxicity or explicit side effects.