The drug interacts or reacts with the protein to combat the disease. A drug with the right shape can latch onto the surface of the protease protein, and keep it from doing its job. If the protease is disabled, the virus can't reproduce itself, so the damage it can inflict is limited. To find useful compounds like a protease inhibitor for a particular virus, scientists need to be able to understand the shape and the function of both the compound itself and the protein it affects. Unlocking the Genome Genes are the sections of DNA that tell the body how to make proteins.
Genes are like the individual files stored on sections of the storage tape.
Using the sequence of a gene, it is possible to determine the amino acid sequence of its associated protein. What remains unknown is how that sequence of amino acids folds into the shape that gives the protein its function. For the majority of proteins, without understanding of the folding process, it is extremely difficult to predict the function of a protein accurately based on its sequence of amino acids. So the genes discovered and sequenced in the Human Genome Project can reveal the amino acid sequences of the associated proteins, but not what most of those proteins do. Understanding how proteins fold is a critical breakthrough needed to understand the function of the proteins for all the genes in the human genome.