10 surprises in the year in science


  1. “About 40-percent of today’s prescription drugs target a family of proteins known as human G-protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs. Scientists first discovered the shape, or structure, of one of these human proteins in 2007. GPCR structures are extremely hard to figure out. But in a surprise, the structures of more than 10 other human GPCRs have been determined by 2012. The rapidly growing increase in determining the structures of these proteins will have a profound impact on biomedical research and human medicine.”

KURT WUTHRICH, Nobel Prize winner, Scripps Research Institute


