2007 Week 19: Related Articles

ENTIRE CATALOG OF FERRET PROTEINS TO DATE

Knots, Origami, & Water

"Knot" To Be Undone, Researchers Discover Unusual Protein Structure
Researchers funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences have determined the structure of a protein with a surprising feature in it: a knot. This is the first time a knot has been found in a protein from the most ancient type of single-celled organism, an archaebacterium, and one of only a few times a knot has been seen in any protein structure.
"It's a surprising and different structure," said NIGMS' John Norvell, Ph.D., director of the Protein Structure Initiative. Protein folding theory previously held that forming a knot was beyond the ability of a protein. Joachimiak suggests that the newly discovered knot may stabilize the amino acid subunits of the protein.

MIT Finds Most Complex Protein Knot Ever Seen
Knots are rare in proteins - less than 1 percent of all proteins have any knots, and most are fairly simple. The researchers analyzed 32,853 proteins, using a computational technique never before applied to proteins at this scale.
Of those that had knots, all were enzymes. Most had a simple three-crossing, or trefoil knot, a few had four crossings, and the most complicated, a five-crossing knot, was initially found in only one protein - ubiquitin hydrolase.
The complicated knot found in ubiquitin hydrolase may prevent it from getting sucked into the proteasome as it works, Mirny said. The researchers hypothesize that proteins with complex knots can't be pulled into the proteasome as easily, and the knots may make it harder for the protein to unfold, which is necessary for degradation.
The same knot is found in ubiquitin hydrolase in humans and in yeast, supporting the theory that there is a connection between the knot and the protein's function. This also seems to suggest that the knot has been "highly preserved throughout evolution," Virnau said.

Since their initial screening, the researchers have discovered five-crossing knots in two other proteins - a brain protein whose overexpression and mutations are linked with cancer and Parkinson's disease, and a protein involved in the HIV replication cycle. They have also found examples of proteins that are closely related and structurally similar except for the presence or absence of a knot.

Origami Helps Scientists Solve Problems
"Origami helps in the study of mathematics and science in many ways," says Martin Kruskal, a mathematician at Rutgers University, "Using origami anyone can become a scientific experimenter with no fuss." Kruskal found that origami is simpler to develop than most scientific theories and a lot easier to apply.

'DNA Origami': Caltech Scientist Creates New Method For Folding Strands Of Dna To Make Microscopic Structures
In a new development in nanotechnology, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology has devised a way of weaving DNA strands into any desired two-dimensional shape or figure, which he calls "DNA origami."
"The construction of custom DNA origami is so simple that the method should make it much easier for scientists from diverse fields to create and study the complex nanostructures they might want," Rothemund explains.
Although Rothemund has hitherto worked on two-dimensional shapes and structures, he says that 3-D assemblies should be no problem. In fact, researchers at other institutions are already using his method to attempt the building of 3-D cages. One biomedical application that Rothemund says could come of this particular effort is the construction of cages that would sequester enzymes until they were ready for use in turning other proteins on or off.

Unexpected Similarities Between Raindrops And Proteins
Raindrops and proteins seem to have a lot in common. This has been shown in a new study by scientists at Umeå University in Sweden. The principle behind the formation of raindrops is very similar to how proteins fold. This knowledge is vital to our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS.


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2007 week 06: Women in the Maths

ENTIRE CATALOG OF FERRET PROTEINS TO DATE


A personal post, as even in this day, I never received much encouragement in my pursuits in my daily life most likely because they were considered more appropriate interests for "men". Even the university environment in which I studied was not exactly supportive. Case in point: I had one young male professor in my Sophomore year (1995, Hiram College) complain that he "didn't know what I was doing in his class." Compared to Linear Algebra-an easy A for me-I was having trouble in his Discrete maths class, but I was maintaining a B. I wish I could say that was my only experience like that.

However, as this knowledge and awareness can benefit the future generations and their research, I felt this was relevant article to post for fellow researchers and current students.

Any loss of potential talent in the scientific fields is a loss to us all.

Implicit Stereotypes And Gender Identification May Affect Female Math Performance

New research may provide insight as to why, despite progress over the last few decades, women remain underrepresented in math-heavy majors and professions.

In an article published in the January issue of Psychological Science, psychologists Amy Kiefer of the University of California, San Francisco and Denise Sekaquaptewa of the University of Michigan point to an interaction between women's own underlying "implicit" stereotypes and their gender identification as a source for their underperformance and lowered perseverance in mathematical fields.

Studying undergraduates enrolled in an introductory calculus course, the researchers discovered that women who possessed strong implicit gender stereotypes, (for example, automatically associating "male" more than "female" with math ability and math professions) and were likely to identify themselves as feminine performed worse relative to their female counterparts who did not possess such stereotypes and who were less likely to identify with traditionally female characteristics. The same underperforming females were also the least inclined to pursue a math-based career. The findings were demonstrated independently of prior course performance and performance on the math portion of the SAT. Strikingly, a majority of the women participating in the study explicitly expressed disagreement with the idea that men have superior math ability.

This research helps to shed light on why women are less likely to complete a major in mathematics in college, pursue math-intensive careers such as computer science or engineering, and are more than twice as likely as men to drop out of these fields once they begin. One explanation is that to maintain a strong identification with math-related fields, women may come to distance themselves from stereotypically female characteristics, which as the authors suggest, could create personal and professional conflicts for those women who do not wish to abandon their feminine identity.

When coupled with strong implicit stereotypes about females' math competence, those women who do maintain strong identification with being female may be particularly vulnerable to leaving math and science fields, regardless of their mathematical prowess. Thus it appears that even when consciously disavowing stereotypes, female math students are still susceptible to negative perceptions of their ability.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Association for Psychological Science. (emphasis added)

Online Resources for Women in Maths & Scientific Fields
Association for Women in Mathematics: http://awm-math.org/
MentorNet: http://mentornet.net/
*looking for more links to add.

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