Famous Proteins

The receptor-binding domain of the coronavirus spike — the target of every COVID-19 vaccine and neutralizing antibody.

💡 Over 10 billion doses of spike-based vaccines have been administered worldwide.

The first protein structure ever solved by X-ray crystallography. Four subunits, four heme groups, one of biology's most elegant cooperative binding machines.

💡 Max Perutz solved this structure after 22 years of work — it won him the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The green fluorescent protein from Aequorea victoria. Revolutionized cell biology by letting scientists tag and visualize any protein inside living cells.

💡 Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering and developing GFP.

The "guardian of the genome." Mutated in over 50% of human cancers. The most studied cancer gene in history.

💡 p53 mutations are found in ~50% of all cancers — it's the most commonly mutated gene in human disease.

The first protein to have its amino acid sequence determined (Frederick Sanger, 1951). Two chains linked by disulfide bonds. A ubiquitous medication for diabetes.

💡 Sanger won two Nobel Prizes — his first (1958) was for sequencing insulin.

Discovered by Alexander Fleming (yes, the penicillin guy) by accident when his nasal mucus dropped on a bacterial culture. One of the most well-studied enzymes in biology.

💡 Lysozyme was the second protein structure ever solved (after hemoglobin) and the first enzyme structure.

The BReast CAncer 1 gene product. Critical for homologous recombination DNA repair. Mutations dramatically increase breast and ovarian cancer risk.

💡 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations account for ~5-10% of all breast cancer cases.

The "undruggable" cancer target that was finally drugged in 2021 when Sotorasib (Lumakras) was FDA-approved. A milestone in covalent drug design.

💡 From 1982 (KRAS discovered) to 2021 (first KRAS drug approved) — 39 years from target identification to therapy.

The target of Ozempic (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide). A Class B GPCR that sits at the center of the GLP-1 revolution transforming diabetes and obesity treatment.

💡 GLP-1 agonists are projected to be a $150B+ market by 2030. Ozempic alone generates >$15B/year.

Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9. The molecular scissors that revolutionized biology. The 2020 Nobel Prize was awarded to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for its discovery.

💡 The first CRISPR-edited human was born in 2018 — a controversial milestone that sparked the field's ethics debate.