Nobel laureate provides KTH researchers with help on the way
In a few days time the Nobel prize in chemistry will be awarded and the prize-winners Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath will be rewarded by having demonstrated what ribosome looks like and how it behaves at the atomic level. This is knowledge which KTH researchers are now using when they study this vital protein machine.
The ribosome’s molecular machinery which manufactures our proteins and which has been mapped in detail by this year’s Nobel prize-winners in chemistry, can stop unintentionally. This happens for example when there is an fault in the code which instructs the manufactured protein as to what it should look like.
Fortunately a rescue operation is initiated which goes under the rather cryptic abbreviation tmRNA. Researchers at the School of Technology and Health at KTH have based their research on the Nobel laureate’s model of the ribosome and localised tmRNA under different stages during the rescue operation.
“The Nobel laureates’ work forms the basis for the interpretation of our data. We then study the interaction between tmRNA and the ribosome in an attempt to understand how tmRNA works, says Hans Hebert, Professor of biotechnology at KTH.
Knowledge of the ribosome’s smallest constituent parts is important for the scientific understanding of life, and can be of immediate benefit to humanity; many of today’s antibiotics cure different types of diseases because they specifically knockout a bacteria’s ribosomes. Bacteria will die if the ribosomes do not work. That is why the ribosomes are important objects when developing new medicines.
Hans Herbert is however cautious when prophesising and what he and his research colleagues future discoveries could possibly lead to.
“One hypothesis is that with the help of our work, in the future we will be able to render unhealthy bacteria harmless,” Hans Herbert says.
For more information, contact Hans Hebert at hans.hebert@sth.kth.se or ring 08 - 790 94 66.
Peter Larsson