#proteins

What do the feeling of an ice cube against your skin and the cool minty blast of toothpaste have in common? Both activate our body’s cold-sensing nerves. But until now, scientists hadn’t pinned down exactly how that happened at the level of individual proteins in our cells. David Julius, a structural biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of a protein called TRPV1 that lets us feel the heat of chili peppers. Now, in a recent study published in Nature, he and his colleagues have taken a close look at a protein that let us feel the cool of menthol. Understanding this cold-sensing protein could one day lead to better therapies for cold hypersensitivity that often troubles people undergoing certain types of cancer chemotherapies. But the protein has been way trickier to handle than its heat-sensing cousin.

earlier this year, i finished a very cool structural biology class that made me realize that - as neat as it is - i absolutely do not want to do that kind of research myself. since then, i started my master’s in a cell biology lab that works on lipids. i’m so excited about my project, but i also don’t want to say too much about it since it’s very specific and niche project, and i don’t really want my research to be associated with my tumblr account

all this has made me realize just how much i don’t know what i’m doing on here talking about protein structures. i have a couple friends who are doing projects focused on determining protein structures and even working with machine learning to make structural predictions, who would be immensely more qualified to talk about any of this. i don’t want to give the impression that i’m an expert where i am not and accidentally share incorrect or misleading information.

on the other hand, i am also discovering just how much of grad school involves not knowing what you’re doing. its been months and i’m very much still confused about so many things. i was recently talking to two people who just finished their PhDs and they both told me that they still feel that way. so, if you’re ever feeling lost and overwhelmed at any point in science, just know that you’re not alone! and to be honest, science would be so much less fun if it all made sense

so, i’ve decided to embrace not fully knowing what’s going on and come back to this blog to try and answer your questions and make some funky shapes!! no promises about how regularly i’ll post, but i plan to try and queue up a few peptonominations over the weekends that will come out throughout the week. in the meantime, enjoy this mess i made by accidentally pasting the nucleotide sequence of my gene of interest into alphafold instead of the amino acids:

thanks to everyone who stuck around for your patience <3

Spider silk-inspired process turns corn protein into tougher plastic-like material

When it comes to technology and innovation, we have a lot to thank Mother Nature for. Learning from the natural world has led to a range of useful products, including Velcro, self-cleaning paint, and ultra-strong body armor. And now, a study published in the journal Nature Communications reports that scientists have developed a way to turn a corn protein into a plastic-like material using a method inspired by spider silk. The breakthrough could one day lead to biodegradable food packaging wraps to help reduce environmental waste.

Protein sequencing