• Question: What is your favourite protein?

    Asked by kaboomi to Daren on 27 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      At the moment, my favourite is a protein called Uridine Monophosphate Kinase as that is what I have been working on for nearly 2 years. I have recently solved the structure of this protein and 6 molecules of the protein pack together to give a triangular shape. I like things that have a lot of symmetry so this made me unusually happy. Here is a picture of the structure looking from the top down:

      We can use this information about the structure to help determine what the protein does and design drugs to inhibit it if it is involved in diseases.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      I’ve never worked with proteins, or really learnt about them so don’t really have a favourite! I’m sure there’s some pretty cool ones out there!

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