Word: proteins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...breakthrough discovery went to a traditional bacteriologist. Taking purified DNA extracted from the chromosomes of dead pneumonia bacteria, Rockefeller Institute's Oswald T. Avery and his associates showed that it could transform other, normally harmless bacteria into virulent ones. The experiment indicated that it was DNA, and not protein, that carried the genetic message. So unexpected was that finding that even Avery was at first unwilling to accept it. Eight years later, Alfred Hershey and his assistant Martha Chase demonstrated that a virus' DNA could, by taking over a bacterium, also nullify the cell's genetic instructions and replace them...
Implicit in the Watson-Crick model were the workings of DNA's other essential function: how it orders the production of proteins. These are also long and twisted helical molecules, but they are the actual building blocks rather than the genetic blueprints for living things. As such, proteins are immensely varied; there are many thousands of different kinds in the human body alone. The distinctive proteins that make up the cells of the eye, for example, differ from those of the kidneys or muscles. Despite their variety, however, all proteins are built from some of only 20 smaller and simpler...
...Buster Crabbe happily engaged in space exploration in the 25th century. But the real 25th century, says THX 1138 director George Lucas, is a denatured anthill where populations lead lives of quiet respiration. Every bodily function is mechanically analyzed; sexual relations are forbidden; food consists of ampuls and dehydrated protein bars...
...monogenic changes in humansprove feasible, certain hereditary diseases may be cured if they result from a single defective gene. Such a defect may mean the cell falls to produce a certain essential protein such as insulin...
...centuries, the world's surgeons have mainly used catgut to stitch up their patients. The chief reason is that the body's enzymes can absorb catgut (actually made from cattle and sheep intestines), and the sutures usually disappear within 90 days. Because the material consists of animal protein, though, it has one flaw: it causes inflammation around the very wound it is supposed to heal...