In a series of papers published this year, Dr. Baker and his colleagues unveiled the results of this work. Protein scientists referred to the enigma simply as “the folding problem.”The folding problem left scientists in the Stone Age when it came to manipulating these important biological elements. To Dr. Baker and many other protein scientists, however, this sort tinkering has been deeply unsatisfying. PhotoHB1.6928.2.3 is just one of a number of proteins that Dr. Baker and his colleagues have designed and tested. Dr. Baker wants to design proteins that trigger a response only after they lock onto several kinds of proteins on the surface of cancer cells at once.

Source: New York Times December 26, 2017 07:00 UTC