Pictured in the background is a computer-generated model of a protein essential to the cause of Chagas' disease. This infection is deadly and infects over 20 million people in Brazil and other Latin and South American countries. Researchers hope to use their knowledge of the protein's structure, gained from space research, to design a drug that connects to this protein, inhibits it, and saves lives. Protein crystals grown in space are sometimes larger and more well defined than those produced on Earth as seen in this example of Isocitrate Lyase, a protein that may help destroy harmful parasites.
Scientists use X-rays to observe and record protein molecule positions locked within the crystals.
NASA's biotechnology efforts are managed by the Microgravity Research Program at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. and have provided advances in the understanding of many diseases including AIDs, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hepatitis, sickle cell anemia and rheumatoid arthritis.