In previous posts, I discussed, respectively, the use of selection to generate an antibody of potential value in treating influenza A virus infections (1) and the relevance of protein dynamics to the evolution of protein function (2). A recent paper in Science (3) offers evidence suggesting that internal protein dynamics play a crucial role in [...]
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Posted in Article review, Genetics, Phylogeny on Jun 26th, 2008
The human haplotype map (HapMap) shows that human populations differ genetically and have been subject to strong, recent positive selection: selection ‘for’ particular genetic variants. Surprisingly, patterns of inferred selection vary markedly between the three human groups analyzed thus far, one Caucasian, one African, and one Asian (Voight et al. 2006). Ethnicity, and natural selection, [...]
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Posted in Article review, Genetics, Phylogeny on May 22nd, 2008
Articles about evolution and medicine are spread so widely over the scientific landscape that no matter how much you read, you know you are missing things. The pleasure on finding them is, however, like finding a diamond in the sand. Such is the case with evolutionary pharmacogenomics (a phrase that turns up not one hit [...]
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