What is the goal of structural genomics?
A. Plans center on a coordinated, international effort to determine unique protein structures, with both known and unknown functions, on a large scale. The objective is to make these structures widely available for clinical and basic studies that will expand knowledge of the role of proteins both in normal biological processes and in disease. Structural genomics will accomplish its goal by determining unique protein structures in a high-throughput mode of operation. X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy are among the key technologies used to achieve a systematic sampling of major protein families and thus create a large collection of protein structures. These experimentally determined structures will be used as templates for developing computer models of related sequence proteins (homologs) to produce structures of a majority of sequenced genes and representative of many protein families.
