As DNA is no longer a mystery, many scientists have shifted their interest toward the manufacturing process－how the information stored in DNA is delivered to produce proteins with different functions, such as forming a person's skin, organs and hair.
On Sunday, scientist Shi Yigong and his team at Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences, reported the structure of a substance, called spliceosome, which is crucial in gene expression. Results of the team's analysis on its functioning mechanism were published in Science, the academic journal.
"The structure of the spliceosome represents a much greater challenge than the structure of the ribosome, for which three individuals in the past were awarded the Nobel Prize," Phillip Sharp, a 1993 Nobel Prize winner for physiology or medicine, said in an e-mail to Shi, which the university released to China Daily.
"The structure of the spliceosome was solved completely by Chinese scientists using state-of-the-art technologies," he said.
"It's a milestone achievement in Chinese life sciences, and it will encourage the next generation to enter the field and target the most challenging and highest-impact projects with the knowledge that Shi Yigong's laboratory took on an impossible challenge and succeeded on a world stage," he said.
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
