#chaperonin

This was based off of a #STEMARegional submission by @GalacDraws on Twitter (their main is GalactaKiller) that I selected to include in my region.

As with any regional mons that deal with canon ones, these designs are separate from the region, and the Stema Region is not dependent on canon mons.

This is a Shellder line based off of the heat shock proteins that extremophiles, living beings that live in conditions that are extreme to many other living things, make a lot more of. Heat shock proteins are made by most living things, including bacteria and humans, and they are made in multiple stressful conditions, not just heat. Many heat shock proteins are chaperone proteins which help other proteins in retaining their form.

Shellder (Fire/Fighting): These Shellders are more accustomed to the searing hot environments near deep sea volcanic vents. Larger Shellders can sometimes pull in a smaller damaged Shellder with their tongue and repair the other's shell.

While most research into viral infections has focused on mechanisms viruses use to enter cells, less is known about the late steps in infection. The new findings were identified in reovirus, a common virus that is normally harmless but has recently been implicated as a potential cause of celiac disease.

"Our work provides compelling evidence that reoviruses, and perhaps additional distantly related viruses, require a specialized protein-folding machine expressed in cells to replicate," said Terence Dermody, M.D., chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Pitt's School of Medicine, physician-in-chief and scientific director at Children's Hospital, and the senior author on the study. "This is a pretty remarkable finding because viruses are in large part made of complex protein building blocks and we know little about how these blocks are assembled."

More information: Jonathan J. Knowlton et al, The TRiC chaperonin controls reovirus replication through outer-capsid folding, Nature Microbiology (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-018-0122-x

The 2011 Lasker Awards were released this week. They are known as the "Baby Nobels", since they often give hints to who is expected to win the Big One in the coming years.

This year's winners:

Franz-Ulrich Hartl and Arthur Horwich for the discovery of chaperonin complexes, which help proteins fold inside cells to reach their active 3-D structures. Being chaperones, they also look for touching below the waist on the cell's first date.

Tu Youyou, a Chinese medical scientist, led a secret military project to screen thousands of natural medicine compounds for anti-malarial properties. She found and herbal extract that worked, isolated the compound, and today we have artemisinin. It has saved millions of lives. Her name kinda sounds like a Spanish translation helper, no?