There's a new type of Flu design puzzle in town!

As an alternative to designing protein binders to the stem region of Hemagglutinin (as in previous Flu Design Puzzles: http://fold.it/portal/node/989769), we are now trying to target the head region (shown in blue here: http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/101/motm.do?momID=76), which serves as a receptor for direct attachment to the cell surface it's trying infect.

In these new puzzles you will be given short sequences of amino acids to design and place into the deep hydrophobic pocket of the head region of Hemagglutinin.

We will have a Scientist Chat with davidLa (who is working on this in the Baker Lab) so you can ask him any questions once we post the puzzle:

( Posted by  beta_helix 46 863  |  Wed, 04/18/2012 - 06:18  |  0 comments )