More of a bio side suggestion, but I’d like to suggest NFkB be added as one of the proteins in the challenges or lab. I have but two biology courses behind me from college but have read some interesting articles on NFkB and it’s role in cancer, inflammation and aging among other things. It would be interesting to hear someone from the bio side chime in on this.
Do you mean the rna of the protein or the protein itself? Because EteRNA is a RNA based project.
As one of the labrats, I’d love to include proteins, including important signaling molecules like NFkB, in EteRNA as well. The issue is that its still a pain (and expensive) to make arbitrary protein sequences – taking weeks or months – and then further difficult to get experimental data comparable to the single-nucleotide resolution chemical mapping data that we can get for RNA. So we couldn’t have weekly experimental feedback to players. Perhaps in the future…
Still there is a great game that tackles protein folding and design with theprospect of testing player solutions, albeit on a long timescale (months to years) – indeed some of us helped develop it: FoldIt. If you haven’t already, please do check it out, and feel free to propose NFkB to its puzzle-masters!
Yes I was suggesting the RNA of NFkB for EteRNA in it’s present form. It would be great to introduce the protein if EteRNA were to be extended beyond the study of RNA, but I wouldn’t expect that until EteRNA were extended beyond RNA for other proteins as well.
I previously was a FoldIt user and will take up your suggestion to propose it for FoldIt.
Thanks for the feedback on the suggestion!