Microbiologists Visualize Perforin, Fighter of Rogue Disease Cells

RoseTracker| The human body protein ‘perforin’ has been studied for the first time by molecular biologists.

“Now we know how it works, we can start to fine tune it to fight cancer, malaria and diabetes,” reports one of the study’s lead authors UK researcher Helen Saibil.

In a startling discovery, the researchers discovered that important parts of the perforin molecule are very similar to those in toxins deployed by bacteria such as anthrax, listeria and streptococcus, showing that perforin punches holes in infected cells using a molecular structure that has survived for close to two billion years. Read on in Health: Scientists Visualize Perforin, Protector of Body’s Immune System.