Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory investigate infectious diseases by creating 3-D models of their proteins.
This week the team reached a milestone, announcing that its scientists have solved the 3-D structure of the 1,000th protein from more than 70 organisms that cause infectious disease in people. The proteins the team has studied come from microbes that cause several serious diseases, including tuberculosis, Listeria, Giardia, Ebola, anthrax, Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection, Legionella, Lyme, chlamydia and the flu.
While the proteins isolated for study are not pathogenic, the structural information provides scientists the opportunity to design molecules that will knock out an essential process in such microbes.
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