Addressing pain and disease on the fly: How fruit flies can teach us about curing chronic pain and halting mosquito-borne diseases
Thursday, December 8, 2011 - 14:30
in Biology & Nature
Studies of a protein that fruit flies use to sense heat and chemicals may someday provide solutions to human pain and the control of disease-spreading mosquitoes. Researchers have discovered how fruit flies distinguish the warmth of a summer day from the pungency of wasabi by using TRPA1, a protein whose human relative is critical for pain and inflammation.