ABSTRACT
The Human Genome Project has provided the biomedical research community with a wealth of information related to disease genetics. Increasingly, diseases are being associated with mutations within specific genes. To capitalize on this information will require the elucidation of the functions of the proteins encoded by these genes. The sequence of a protein determines the final conformation it will adopt, although the pathways through which protein folding occurs are only just beginning to be understood. In fact, the folding of proteins to their native conformations is so crucial that a set of proteins termed ‘chaperones’ functions to aid the folding process. The most powerful paradigm governing the study of protein function is that of the structure-function relationship – that protein function is determined by the precise three-dimensional shape of the folded polypeptide chain. Research into this relationship has given birth to a new field termed ‘structural biology.’
