Saturday, December 4, 2010

promiscuous tyrosine kinase

Last day of immunology, and Dr. N. didn't fail to leave us with a lasting impression.

Discussing cancer and chronic myelogenous leukemia, Dr. N. mentioned that the fusion protein produced by the "Philadelphia" chromosome  goes around and becomes a constitutively active tyrosine kinase. She proclaimed it a "promiscuous" tyrosine kinase, a "slutty" protein which "turns on" all these other proteins. 

Everyone laughed for a good while. I love it when neutral/biological objects are described with human-verbs and adjectives: "helps", "wants", "recruits" are common ones that come to mind! 

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