Biology

Perusing the Pancreas

I recently got the opportunity to spend a pair of summers working on a research project at a hospital just outside of Boston. The goal was to investigate diabetes and pancreatic cancer, and see how new-onset, or previously undiagnosed, diabetes might be an indication of pancreatic cancer. The study is not yet published and the data is being analyzed as this essay is written. Nonetheless, the science behind diabetes and pancreatic cancer is fascinating, and the topic is one that will be of increasing importance as lifespans increase and cancer becomes increasingly common. While I started this job almost entirely ignorant of the science behind what I would be studying, I found the topic fascinating, and I thought others would too. With that in mind, I thought a discussion of the science and literature I studied might be of interest to the population at large. [Read more…] about Perusing the Pancreas

The Unexplored Role of Water in Biochemical Reactions

Proteins and Active Sites – A General Overview

Each of our trillions of cells are intricately designed machines which are uniquely suited to carrying out a highly specific set of tasks. The most important components of these machines are proteins, often referred to as the workhorses of biochemistry. The goal of my work is to explore the unique role that water molecules can take in the functions of these amazing biomolecules. Every protein is essentially a long chain of amino acids, anywhere from ten to ten thousand links in length, where each link interacts with every other to fold the protein into a specific shape, which gives it its unique function. Many proteins function as “enzymes”, which means that their job is to speed up (catalyze) certain biologically important reactions, such as the breakdown of other proteins. Reactions such as this could take thousands of years to happen under normal conditions, but in the presence of the proper enzymes, they can proceed to completion in less than a second.