With no cure available, Fragile X syndrome is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability. Individuals with the syndrome cannot produce enough of a protein—called the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP)—whose function has remained somewhat mysterious. Now researchers, reporting online April 17 in the Cell Press journal Molecular Cell, show that the FMRP protein regulates the machinery within a cell that is responsible for generating all functional proteins. The findings provide new insights into how Fragile X syndrome develops and could lead to novel therapies that might help restore some of the capabilities lost in affected individuals.