Running the Cycle

Sept. 9, 2002

The route from gene to drug via high-throughput protein structure determination could ultimately yield thousands of structures a year.

1 DNA from humans and other organisms is the starting material for analysis.

2 Bioinformatics techniques are used to identify genes likely to be involved in disease pathways.

3 Molecular biology techniques are used to clone genes, express, and purify protein.

4 Crystals of purified protein are grown at high throughput.

5 Protein crystals are analyzed using X-ray beams at a synchrotron radiation source.

6 The 3-D structure of a protein is solved using computational techniques.

7 The protein structure enables better drug discovery by revealing the way a potential drug interacts with the protein.

Back to Betting on the Structural Revolution 

