Translated material
Squirrel Day
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was divided into three generations
Representatives of three generations of biochemists were awarded the Nobel Committee . The winners of the prize in chemistry were 85-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University professor John Fenn, 64-year-old Swiss Kurt Wüthrich, who works simultaneously for the Scripps Institute in California and the Zurich Federal Institute of Technology, as well as a 45-year-old researcher at the Japanese corporation Shimazu » Koichi Tanaka. Each of the scientists proposed his own original method for the analysis and structural study of biological macromolecules - in particular, protein. This important discovery not only allowed chemical biology to develop as a branch of great science, the Nobel Committee said, but also made a huge contribution to the development. pharmaceuticals and even the food industry.The active part of most drugs consists of small molecules that easily penetrate human cells. Without having narrowly targeted properties, the medicine enters into all types of cellular connections, which sometimes gives unpleasant side effects. As for drugs made from macromolecules (such as, for example, proteins, peptides and nucleic acids), they can influence cellular processes in a targeted and much more intense manner. However, the main difficulty for such drugs is penetration into the bloodstream: cell membranes are almost impermeable to “large” peptides and nucleic acids. Therefore, the most important task of chemists was to study the structure of macromolecules.
John Fenn and Koihi Tanaka developed methods that allowed detailed analysis of macromolecules. But while the American scientist used mass spectral analysis, which is common in chemical laboratories, his Japanese colleague exposed the protein to a pulsating laser beam. Now the two researchers will have to share half of the Nobel Prize among themselves - approximately 500 thousand dollars. The second half will go to Kurt Wüthrich, who was the first to compose the three-dimensional structure of macromolecules, using nuclear magnetic resonance for the first time in protein research and consistently identifying fixed points in its molecules.