• Question: do you think different kind of proteins can cure all diseases?

    Asked by to Loren, Toby on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Loren Macdonald

      Loren Macdonald answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Every disease is different, and some are caused by problems with proteins. In which case, proteins can often be used to treat these conditions. Say, a person is missing a protein, it could be as simple as replacing these proteins. However, unfortunately, it’s not often as simple as that.

      A lot of diseases are treated with small molecules that interfere with proteins that are misbehaving. They’re not always proteins themselves (although they can be) but molecules made of atoms like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen- much like water (which is hydrogen and oxygen). Proteins are strings of things called amino acids which are made up of the atoms themselves- and therefore are generally much larger.

      So- proteins won’t necessarily be the answer in every case. Every disease needs to be treated differently as they are all caused by problems in different areas. Sometimes two patients with the same disease can have different causes. If you can find the specific cause- which we’re much better at these days- then you can find a way to treat it.

    • Photo: Tobias Warnecke

      Tobias Warnecke answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Hi dianachu,

      hmm… I think that, in principle, you could come up with a protein-based solution to most diseases (although that doesn’t mean we have a clue what protein to use or how to engineer one to cure a particular disease). Many of the problems are practical, starting with the fact that, for many diseases, we simply don’t know what protein might be useful. And even if we do have a good idea, it’s challenging to get your life-saver protein into all the cells. Say if you swallow a pill with some proteins in it or inject it into the blood, that doesn’t mean it will make it all the way to the bone marrow and be taken up by those cells. So there’s definitely a lot of challenges in practice plus the fact that we don’t understand enough about how many diseases work to engineer a cure from scratch.

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