Retinitis Pigmentosa

[heimie]

I was just informed that I have Retinitis Pigmentosa. I've been folding for over 2 years and was just curious if any of the affected Proteins theorized to be a cause of this disease have been in any of the WUs to date. (23H opsin I belive is one of the proteins targeted in some of the articles I have read.)

[John Naylor]

I don't recognise this protein from any projects I can recall, but sometimes it is not necessary to study the exact protein in order to obtain results which may help... A protein which this project does study may produce results that are applicable in some way to many other unrelated proteins, so it is quite possible that work this project is doing will help to further research in that area. I don't think it has studied that particular protein, though I could be wrong.

[heimie]

Thank you for the response. I may have misread the protein name as most of the literature was well over my head. As I was reading after my initial post, it seems that there is a great deal of research into this disease based on misfolded/mutated proteins. Another reason for me to fold regardless of whether or not the proteins I may fold are directly related to my condition. I'm a firm believer in this science, but a little good Karma never hurts either.

[bruce]

FAH often targets specific proteins where there is a known association between a mis-folded protein and a specific disease. Certainly there are diseases which have nothing to do with mis-folding, but there are also diseases where a specific association has yet to be discovered.

A lot of what FAH does is more basic scientific research than that. Other important results are very general and apply to any protein, whether there's a specific protein variant or a specific disease that is being targeted. These general results will be helpful once a specific protein is identified that needs more study.

[heimie]

Thanks Bruce.