|

Mesoscale explorer

Sometimes it is hard to imagine how many molecules are involved in a common biological pathway but there are thousands of molecules that orchestrate their chemical reactions to sustain life. One such area is the synaptic gap where messages are passed between neurons. This is a very active space where vesicle with messengers cross the membrane barrier to the other neurons through vesicles. But within the cell at that location, there are multiple molecules involved that can be visualized. This help understand how difficult is drug discovery wherein binding of a small molecule can change this delicate balance of many interacting proteins towards the desired outcome.

Feel free to explore this space at the mesoscale explorer: https://molstar.org/me/

Similar Posts

  • Foods and toxicity

    Humans have a fascination of eating food that has toxic components. One particular one that is unique to Jamaica and Africa is the Ackee fruit (Blighia sapida). The unripe food contains toxins called hypogylcin A & B. This is present mainly in the seed and the skin of the fruit but if consumed then it…

  • |

    Etoposide – from plants and back to plants

    Etoposide : This is used in chemotherapy to prevent cell division and works by causing mutation in the dividing cell since cancer cells divide more rapidly than a normal cell. It works by binding to the DNA-Topoisomerase complex which causes transient double stranded breaks to help uncoil DNA during cell division. In normal cells, the…

  • Cardiovascular disease

    Staccato comments on cardiovascular disease Heart attack – Most common reason is blockage but not every time. Angina is progressive blockage that is causing heart attack. EKG often times cannot show a heart attack. It shows 60-70% of time but not 100%. You don’t wait for the enzymes to go up in an emergency. Many…

  • Flu vaccine – FAST

    Translational Medicine had a paper by Dr Dormitzer from Novartis and Dr Venter of creating a flu vaccine in just about 4 days and 4 hours, as opposed to months and weeks that it used to take previously. They used the sequence supplied by Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and transfecting it into tissue culture…

  • Tau

    There is so much known about the Tau protein but we still have a lot to understand about its role in diseases. In disorders where Tau is the major protein that is involved – the primary taupathies – such as Pick’s disease and Progressive supranuclear palsy, it is clear that Tau has a major effect…