Ayyuce Demirbas

“Proteins often bind to small molecules. Sometimes that binding behavior is central to the protein’s function: the main role for a given protein can involve binding to particular molecules. For example, signaling transduction in cells often passes messages via the mechanism of a protein binding to another molecule. Other times, the molecule binding to the protein is foreign: possibly a drug we’ve created to manipulate the protein, possibly a toxin that interferes with its function.”
― Bharath Ramsundar, Deep Learning for the Life Sciences: Applying Deep Learning to Genomics, Microscopy, Drug Discovery, and More

“It begins with the siRNA binding to a collection of proteins called the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The RISC uses the siRNA as a template to search out matching mRNAs in the cell and degrade them. This serves both as a mechanism for regulating gene expression and as a defense against viruses. It also is a powerful tool for biology and medicine. It lets you temporarily “turn off” any gene you want. You can use it to treat a disease, or to study what happens when a gene is disabled. Just identify the mRNA you want to block, select any short segment of it, and create a siRNA molecule with the complementary sequence.”
― Bharath Ramsundar, Deep Learning for the Life Sciences: Applying Deep Learning to Genomics, Microscopy, Drug Discovery, and More

“Auschwitz not only kills innocents; it kills innocence as well.”
― Antonio Iturbe, The Librarian of Auschwitz

“The smallest living things known, the viroids, are composed of less than 10,000 atoms. They cause several different diseases in cultivated plants and have probably most recently evolved from more complex organisms rather than from simpler ones. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a still simpler organism that is in any sense alive. Viroids are composed exclusively of nucleic acid, unlike the viruses, which also have a protein coat. They are no more than a single strand of RNA with either a linear or a closed circular geometry. Viroids can be so small and still thrive because they are thoroughgoing, unremitting parasites. Like viruses, they simply take over the molecular machinery of a much larger, well-functioning cell and change it from a factory for making more cells into a factory for making more viroids.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos