What we can learn from viruses?
CIQUS researchers are using the information gathered about of how some viruses replicate themselves. From these studies, they are developing a method that allows trying different vaccines against different viral outbreaks very quickly and, remarkably, without requiring a special laboratory, because they mimic virus structure resembling the important parts against which the immune system reacts. Therefore, inactivated viruses are not needed.
The research group of J. Benavente and J. Martínez Costas have also developed a molecular tagging method that can be applied to many other different situations. As an example, they are able to create a sort of microspheres, where we can send any protein that we are interested in, just by adding a small tag. This can be worth for purifying proteins to produce industrial enzymes, for changing the bioavailability of therapeutic proteins that work as drugs...
By using the same method, one is able to remove a protein from its normal localization within the cell, by attracting it to the microspheres by interaction with a known ligand. Thus, you can study the function of that protein by removing it from its normal cellular location.
