Study uncovers secrets of a clump-dissolving protein
Thursday, January 22, 2015 - 12:00
in Biology & Nature
Workhorse molecules called heat-shock proteins contribute to refolding proteins that were once misfolded and clumped, causing such disorders as Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. James Shorter, PhD, an associate professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been developing ways to "reprogram" one such protein - a yeast protein called Hsp104—to improve its therapeutic properties.