Hello littlepeaks,

You're welcome.

Yep, that's what the "mgl" means. I've been a member of Prof. Art Olson's "Molecular Graphics Lab" at TSRI since 2007. All the FightAIDS@Home team members at TSRI have "mgl_" at the beginning of their World Community Grid user names (to help identify us as the FAAH scientists).


Papa3, thank you for the links to those news articles. The ones about RANTES and gp120 look very interesting. I just downloaded the papers that those news articles discuss.


Thank you very much for your interest and your help,
Alex L. Perryman, Ph.D.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/uoz-htf042011.php

"20-Apr-2011

How TRIM5 fights HIV

Thanks to a certain protein, rhesus monkeys are resistant to HIV. Known as TRIM5, the protein prevents the HI virus from multiplying once it has entered the cell. Researchers from the universities of Geneva and Zurich have now discovered the protein's mechanism, as they report in Nature. This also opens up new prospects for fighting HIV in humans. "

good news.

sounds very very nice. by far, it is the first concrete evidence about it that I saw and remember til now, so hope that be really true ! fingers crossed !

http://www.sciencecodex.com/water_molecules_c...e_of_dna_genetic_material

[...] The DNA's double helix never occurs in isolation; instead, its entire surface is always covered by water molecules which attach themselves with the help of hydrogen bonds. But the DNA does not bind all molecules the same way. "We've been able to verify that some of the water is bound stronger whereas other molecules are less so," [...] This is, however, only true if the water content is low. When the water sheath swells, these differences are adjusted and all hydrogen bonds become equally strong. This, in turn, changes the geometry of the DNA strand: The backbone of the double helix, which consists of sugar and phosphate groups, bends slightly. [...] the sugar components and the base pairs create particularly strong bonds with the water sheath while the bonds between the water and the phosphate groups are weaker. [...] The double helix structure, the strength of the hydrogen bonds, and even the DNA volume tend to change with higher water contents." [...] with DNA it is possible to realize highly ordered structures with new optical, electronic, and mechanical properties at tiny dimensions which are also of interest [...] The bound water sheath is not just an integral part of such structures. It can also assume a precise switching function because the results indicate that increasing the hydration shell by only two water molecules per phosphate group may cause the DNA structure to "fold" instantly. Such water dependent switching processes might be able to control, for example, the release of active agents from DNA-based materials. [...] every biomolecule which is bound to the DNA has to first displace the water sheath. The Dresden scientists have analyzed this process for the peptide indolicidin. This antimicrobial protein is less structured and very flexible. That it still "identifies" the double helix so precisely is due to the fact that highly structured water molecules are released when it coalesces with the genetic material. The water sheath's restructuring, which is actually an energetic advantage, increases the binding of the active agent. Such details are really important for the development of DNA-binding drugs [...]