A fresh look inside the protein nano-machines
Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - 05:01
in Biology & Nature
Proteins digest food, and fight infections and cancer, and serve other metabolic functions. They are basically nano-machines, each one designed to perform a specific task. But how did they evolve to match those needs, and how did genes encode the structure and function of proteins? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, the Institute for Basic Science, Korea, and the Rockefeller University, U.S., have conducted a study that tackles this question and explains the basic geometry of the gene-to-protein code by connecting proteins to properties of amorphous physical matter.