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Biologists have identified many genes in recent years but often they have no idea as to
what these genes actually do. Determining the molecular and cellular functions of the
protein that each of those genes encodes for has proved to be particularly difficult. Now,
scientists working at the Advanced Light Source have demonstrated a "structural
genomics" technique in which high resolution 3-D images of a protein's structure can
be used to identify the
protein's function ...
 In a
few seconds an origami artist can fold a sheet of paper into a bird or flower or pagoda or
other intricate shape. In much less time, a string of amino acids can fold itself into a
protein, the kind of molecule that comes in many thousands of complex shapes and does most
of the work of life. Origami can be taught, but no one knows how proteins fold themselves
so quickly into the same shapes virtually every time. Investigating this
phenomena, scientists working at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing
Center (NERSC) have discovered unexpected regularities in the pathways of protein-like
structures ...
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