beta_helix Staff Lv 1
After the most recent Foldit paper came out, our lab was contacted by scientists at University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine working on a currently unsolved transcription factor. Their Department of Internal Medicine hopes you can help them with this protein, here is their message to you:
"The Foldit group has recently demonstrated that focused play can achieve results that have eluded structural biologists for over a decade. Congratulations on your efforts! Our next set of puzzles focuses on another significant real-world problem that has tremendous potential for curing a wide range of diseases using stem cell therapy.
Pluripotency is a unique biological property that characterizes rare stem cells during early development. Pluripotent stem cells can become any cell of the body and therefore have great potential for regenerative medicine. Nanog is one of three proteins that are essential for being able to convert or ‘reprogram’ skin cells into a pluripotent state. Solving this protein structure will help us design drugs that can activate this protein and its binding partners as a strategy for patient-specific tissue regeneration."
Try out puzzle 476: Unsolved Nanog Transcription Factor.
http://fold.it/portal/node/991002