An important role of a particular synonymous codon composition of a gene in its expression level is well known. There are a number of algorithms optimizing codon usage of recombinant genes to maximize their expression in host cells. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism remains unsolved and is of significant relevance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability of protein chains to spontaneously form their three-dimensional structures is a long-standing mystery in molecular biology. The most conceptual aspect of this mystery is how the protein chain can find its native, "working" spatial structure (which, for not too big protein chains, corresponds to the global free energy minimum) in a biologically reasonable time, without exhaustive enumeration of all possible conformations, which would take billions of years. This is the so-called "Levinthal's paradox.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g.
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