However, she said this might not work, as other proteins were also thought to be implicated.
Another surprise: Many genes produce half-baked proteins that need to interact with other proteins, made by other genes, to function.
One of the ways functional genomics works is to use models to identify proteins or small molecules that interact with other proteins.
The microcantilever arrays are each coated with substances that stick to the HIV and other proteins, which are markers associated with disease progression.
In the yeast cell, they found only about a quarter of the genes and proteins appeared to be essential, in that they connected to large numbers of other proteins and substances.
And we have absolutely no way to calculate in principle all the possible interactions and functions of a single protein with the tens of thousands of other proteins in the cell!
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Hazelrigg made her own large contribution to GFP research: She was among the first to attach GFP to other proteins, allowing scientists to watch where individual proteins go within a cell.
Pills from Pfizer and Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ) that hit not only VEGF, the Avastin target, but also other proteins in the cell, are showing incredible promise.
Demand for meat and other proteins will skyrocket.
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At Cargill, higher beef prices "could result in some movement, by some consumers, to other proteins, although we're hopeful weather, pricing and consumer desire results in keeping with tradition for the next several weeks, " said spokesman Mike Martin.
Driven by the idea that he might discover something totally new, he labored nights and weekends for months, filtering out thousands of other proteins until he finally separated the right one in 1989 and cloned the human version of the gene that produces it.
Since then Deisseroth and Boyden have discovered other microbial proteins that can be used to turn brain cells off with light.
Coeliac disease is caused by gluten, a protein that is found in wheat, and other similar proteins that are found in rye, barley, and oats.
Other bioluminescent proteins don't light up unless certain enzymes are present.
Marine biologists on board the ship closely monitored the fish which were fed a sustainable diet of soy oil, soy meal and other sustainable proteins.
Many of the health benefits of exercise are thought to be due to the synthesis of damage-controlling molecules called heat-shock proteins, and Dr Rattan's group has been experimenting with other ways of triggering these proteins.
Scientists have long known that proteins and other molecules in the body don't act alone.
There is one other way in which proteins differ fundamentally from genes.
Both approaches worked, and the bacteria grown in arsenic have high levels of arsenic in their DNA and also in their proteins and other structures.
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Peroxynitrite is a source of hydroxyl radical-like reactivity, and it directly oxidizes proteins and other macromolecules with resultant carbonyl formation from side-chain and peptide-bond cleavage.
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It sits inside the surface of a cell and springs into action when signaled by other cells, activating proteins that temporarily boost the connection between two nerve cells.
In the same way that spreadsheets can instantaneously perform complex sales projections, biomedical researchers in the future will pump in the proteins and other chemicals they want to test into a microchip, and the result will be quickly spit out on a computer display.
Working with Yale University neurologist Stephen Strittmatter, who cloned the Nogo gene, Biogen Idec has created a counterinsurgency protein that acts as a sponge to soak up copies of Nogo and other growth-blocking proteins in the spinal cord before they can bind to the receptor.
Prof Wendy Barclay, chair in influenza virology at Imperial College London, said other more complex viruses make proteins at different times during replication, but what is clever is that influenza can do this in such a simple way.
It comes down to about 265-350 genes and the way they work together to build proteins and the other chemicals that form the organism's structure, metabolism and self-repair mechanisms could help us to fill in some major gaps in our biological knowledge.
Those bad clinical results came only months after other cancer therapies that targeted single proteins also hit major roadblocks.
But these different modes of action allow for the possibility that, in combination, the proteins might enhance each other's activities, so the three researchers tested them together as well as separately.
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