For the first time, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have developed a technology allowing them to "see" single molecules of messenger RNA as they are translated into proteins in living mammalian cells. Initial findings using this technology that may shed light on neurological diseases as well as cancer were published online today in Science.
"Translation is the fundamental biological process for converting mRNA's information into proteins," said Robert Singer, Ph.D., the paper's senior author and co-chair of anatomy & structural biology and co-director of the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics Center at Einstein. "We know from genome-wide studies that translation controls protein abundance in cells—crucially important to every single function that cells carry out. Using this technology, we can finally learn how translation is regulated and gain major insights into diseases that occur when translation is faulty." Dr. Singer also holds the Harold and Muriel Block Chair in Anatomy & Structural Biology at Einstein.
This is a biological revolution. The Holy Grail of biology is the understanding and controlling of the production of proteins. To read more, click here.