Best Small Cos. Doesn't Want Bayer. You have to pick the correct switch from a wall covered with tens of thousands, all blinking incomprehensibly. That's exactly the fix scientists find themselves in when they stare at the human genome.
Genes are essentially switches that are turned on and off by big blocks of tens or hundreds.
Whitehead is associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The technique centers on chemicals called activators, also known as DNA-binding proteins that turn groups of genes on and off. Like all proteins, the 1,000 or so activators in the human body are themselves made by genes. And many of these genes are implicated in cancer. So even though scientists did their work in yeast, there are very real medical applications down the road.