Preventing Misfolding by Preventing Folding

(science.org)

63 points | by surprisetalk 5 days ago

5 comments

  • Mtinie 3 hours ago
    > There are people who will tell you that a cell is just the way that ribosomes make more ribosomes, and I’m not in a position to say that they’re wrong. It’s for sure that these protein-synthesizing factories are extremely ancient, extremely well-optimized, and they’re constantly at work in every living cell reading off sequences from messenger RNA molecules and extruding the corresponding protein sequences.

    I recognize that our bodies are biomechanics in action. I’ve read this multiple times over the years. But there’s something fresh (to me) in the way Dr. Lowe describes them as (paraphrasing): “ancient technology, in use, today”.

    It’s both a comfort and a curse as I think about it from this perspective.

  • MarkusQ 13 hours ago
    Finding a cogent explanation for yet another category of "junk-DNA"/non-coding region is quite encouraging. Yes, things are turning out to be more complicated than we thought, but they are also more comprehensible than we feared, at least once we figure out the right way to look at things.
  • kazinator 13 hours ago
    My joints may be inflexible, but at least I can't be misfolded!
  • wizzwizz4 18 hours ago
    Derek Lowe has a very distinct voice.
  • reindeer2 11 hours ago
    [flagged]