Proteins control many biological processes in organisms ranging from bacteria to plants and humans.
The initial phase begins with today's announcement of the first awards for pilot research centers in structural genomics, a new field dedicated to a broad understanding of protein structures and functions in relation to gene sequences. We expect that this effort will yield major biological findings that will improve our understanding of health and disease. Structural genomics, which builds on genome sequencing efforts, can teach us fundamental lessons about biology and can advance efforts in structure-based drug design. For example, the structure of a disease-related protein can provide insight into how the protein works normally and how a faulty structure can cause disease. This same structure may reveal how to design drugs to treat that disease.