This is an example of a very common molecule found in every cell. It's obviously not a chemical structure but a diagram of something else. You have to give us the common name of this thing and identify the species. You'll be pleased to know that I don't need the systematic IUPAC name for this one.
There's a direct connection between this molecule, the species, and Wednesday's Nobel Laureate. As a matter of fact, the diagram above is from the acceptance speech of the Nobel Laureate. Your task is to figure out the significance of today's molecule and identify the Nobel Laureate who studied it.
The reward goes to the person who correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are two ineligible candidates for this week's reward. The prize is a free lunch at the Faculty Club.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk(at)bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureates so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings.
Correct responses will be posted tomorrow along with the time that the message was received on my server. I may select multiple winners if several people get it right.
UPDATE: We have a winner! Alex Knoll wins a free lunch at the Faculty CLub whenever he's in Toronto. The molecule is the ribosomal RNA transcription unit from Tetrahymena thermophila and the Nobel Laureate is Tom Cech who studied the self-spicing reaction of the ribosomal RNA precursor.
The good news is that every one of the people who responded got it right. The bad news is that there were only eight of you.
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