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| Li |
“Life is a process of self-assembly.”
Soft-spoken biochemist Alex Li apologizes if he’s sounding too philosophical, but it’s hard to avoid such reflections when your work deals with the fundamental principles of how living things are put together.
He’s especially fascinated by the way proteins come to have the shape they have. Proteins make up our hair and muscle, our brains and lungs, our enzymes and antibodies, and each one must attain a particular shape in order to do its work.
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Reeves |
They start out as chains of small links called amino acids and then, within milliseconds of their creation, they fold and twist and wad up into the distinctive shapes that are critical to their function. Many go on to combine with other proteinseither identical copies of themselves or different proteinsto assemble into a sort of super-structure.
To read this article, featuring Alex Li and molecular biologist Ray Reeves, click on the following link to Washington State Magazine.
Learn more about Alex Li, Associate Professor, WSU Department of Chemistry, here.
Learn more about Ray Reeves, Professor; WSU School of Molecular Biosciences, here.
