January 2014

Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry

Lifting the hood on human cells Imagine if you could peer into one of the 40 trillion cells in the human body like you were lifting the hood of a car. Inside you would see a whirring engine of life, made up of thousands of different, complex, and interacting parts. How could you tell what each part did, and which were the most important ones? Specialized research “mechanics” explore the actions of proteins and other molecules inside cells.