Good explanation. The paragraph about polypeptides being “springs” was particularly helpful. I often read of how important folding of proteins can be, and how the sequential exposure of chemical faces may govern the order in which biological processes occur. But thinking of a polypeptide as a “spring” clarifies for me how this might all work mechanically. (The new bio of Jennifer Doudna has quite a bit about folding, but manages to be unclear about the mechanics of CRISPR reactions).
You mentioned mRNA and cancers at the top, and that’s a topic that interests me. The fellow who first argued in biological detail that viruses might cause cancer was a really amazing Soviet scientist, Lev Zilber. I am not capable of untangling who exactly deserves a Nobel Prize, but Zilber spent 8 years in the gulag and his discoveries were falsely attributed to anonymous NKVD scientists. Zilber himself got in trouble because he claimed that a plague in So jet Azerbaijan was due to poor sanitation practices, when Stalin had already made clear that it was because of hostile intelligence services digging up the bodies of deceased people at night.
Anyway, if you have any detailed insight into how viruses associated with cancer might be eradicated with mNRA, that would be an interesting topic. I’ve seen the claim that it would certainly work, but it seems it’s not quite so simple as was first thought.
Good explanation. The paragraph about folding and “springs” is particularly vivid; I often read about how proteins are folded, how the surface outwardly presented controls the chemical interactions, etc, but I think the idea of a slowly-opening spring makes the mechanics clearer.
I’m interested in viruses that cause, or contribute to, cancers, such as hpv or hep C. It seems that mRNA technology should be usable to prevent those viral infections, too, though I don’t fully understand the practical problems in applying it for precancerous viruses.
Good explanation. The paragraph about polypeptides being “springs” was particularly helpful. I often read of how important folding of proteins can be, and how the sequential exposure of chemical faces may govern the order in which biological processes occur. But thinking of a polypeptide as a “spring” clarifies for me how this might all work mechanically. (The new bio of Jennifer Doudna has quite a bit about folding, but manages to be unclear about the mechanics of CRISPR reactions).
You mentioned mRNA and cancers at the top, and that’s a topic that interests me. The fellow who first argued in biological detail that viruses might cause cancer was a really amazing Soviet scientist, Lev Zilber. I am not capable of untangling who exactly deserves a Nobel Prize, but Zilber spent 8 years in the gulag and his discoveries were falsely attributed to anonymous NKVD scientists. Zilber himself got in trouble because he claimed that a plague in So jet Azerbaijan was due to poor sanitation practices, when Stalin had already made clear that it was because of hostile intelligence services digging up the bodies of deceased people at night.
Anyway, if you have any detailed insight into how viruses associated with cancer might be eradicated with mNRA, that would be an interesting topic. I’ve seen the claim that it would certainly work, but it seems it’s not quite so simple as was first thought.
Good explanation. The paragraph about folding and “springs” is particularly vivid; I often read about how proteins are folded, how the surface outwardly presented controls the chemical interactions, etc, but I think the idea of a slowly-opening spring makes the mechanics clearer.
I’m interested in viruses that cause, or contribute to, cancers, such as hpv or hep C. It seems that mRNA technology should be usable to prevent those viral infections, too, though I don’t fully understand the practical problems in applying it for precancerous viruses.