To prove the importance of the JAK pathway, someone needed to discover a compound to test the hypothesis that inhibiting the JAK enzyme was of value in treating disease.

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Researchers can only use dead cells or pieces of a cell and can only test for one response at a time, such as enzyme activity or the binding of a compound to a receptor.

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When this compound is present in sufficient amounts, the pyruvate kinase enzyme stops generating fuel for cells and instead pushes cells towards growing and dividing.

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And the machines can only test for one event at a time--say, monitoring one enzyme's activity or seeing if a compound binds to a target on a cell.

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It may be there was something bad about this compound, or it may be that blocking the gamma secretase enzyme is not a good approach.

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They worked together to understand an enzyme Chappell discovered in tobacco plants that gets them to produce an antifungal compound.

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