Muscle physiologist sought an alternative energy source to replace the body’s usual one, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Such a source could control muscle activity, and might lead to new muscle spasm-calming treatments in cerebral palsy, for example, or activate or enhance skeletal muscle function in MS, ALS and chronic heart failure. They report this month that they have made a series of synthetic compounds to serve as alternative energy sources for the muscle protein myosin.