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Mapping Proteins: Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Discover a Better Way to Decode the Protein Language

Two researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are creating a faster, more efficient data-mining technique to determine basic rules of how proteins form. The researchers are Mohammed Zaki, assistant professor of computer science, and Chris Bystroff, assistant professor of biology.

Researchers can identify a protein’s biological function, and therefore its specific role in disease, if they know the 3-D structure of a protein given its amino-acid sequence.

Twenty simple amino acids make up the "language" that forms the thousands of complex proteins in the human body. The idea is to discover how amino acids, or "letters," lead to "words" or common patterns to form proteins.

Jodi Ackerman | Rensselaer News and Information

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