Word: proteins
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...beneficial gene they want to deliver, and then let the virus infect a patient's cells. The virus inserts its own now harmless genes, as well as the beneficial one, into the cellular DNA. If all goes well and the gene "expresses" itself, the cell begins producing the needed protein...
...with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease caused by the immune system's running amuck and attacking the body's connective tissue. Their strategy was to expose cells in the swollen tissue lining their patient's finger joints to genetically engineered viruses. These viruses carried a gene responsible for a protein that blocks the action of interleukin-1, a substance that stimulates immune-system activity. Without that stimulation, the doctors hope, the immune system will halt its assault on the joint linings...
TARGETING TOXINS Not so long ago, doctors thought they had finally found that long-awaited magic bullet in the war against cancer. Their great hope bears the impressive name of monoclonal antibodies, which are proteins that bind to--and attack--a particular target, usually another protein known as an antigen. But while natural antibodies go after antigens on the surface of viruses and bacteria, the artificial monoclonal antibodies are constructed to attack antigens that the immune system does not ordinarily recognize as dangerous, such as those displayed by tumor cells. Moreover, these antibodies (dubbed monoclonal because they are identical...
Scientists consider receptors--which are specially tailored protein molecules--and the substances that bind to them to be the critical junction in the ongoing chemical processes that underlie thinking, feeling, dreaming and remembering. For an electrical signal to travel from neuron to neuron in the brain, it must cross a minuscule gap, the synapse, between them. A number of different chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters ferry the signal across the synapse and then lock on to receptors that lie on the membrane of the next nerve cell in line...
That conviction got a big boost this past summer when scientists discovered that some exceptionally lucky people are born with their own genetic shield against HIV. Working independently, research teams from the U.S. and Belgium zeroed in on a single protein, called a chemokine, that lodges on the surface of all T cells. The researchers already knew that HIV uses this particular chemokine, variously dubbed CKR-5 or CCR-5, as a gateway into the cell. They knew that CKR-5 does not grant the virus access all by itself. Before it can gain entry, HIV has to dock with...