Our bodies could not maintain their existence without thousands of proteins performing myriad vital tasks within cells. Since malfunctioning proteins can cause disease, the study of protein structure and function can lead to the development of drugs and treatments for numerous disorders. For example, the discovery of insulin’s role in diabetes paved the way for the development of a treatment based on insulin injections. Yet, despite enormous research efforts led by scientists worldwide, the cellular function of numerous proteins is still unknown. To reveal this function, scientists perform various genetic manipulations to increase or, conversely, decrease the production of a certain protein, but existing manipulations of this sort are complicated and do not fully meet the researchers’ needs.
