Monday's Molecule #130: Winner?

 
The "molecule" is Rous Sarcoma Virus or RSV. It's a retrovirus, specifically an alpharetrovirus. Other types of retrovirus include Lentivirus (e.g. HIV).

Unless you're an expert, you really can't tell from the diagram whether this is an alpharetrovirus or some other type of retrovirus. That's why I provided some clues linking this virus to last week's molecule and Nobel Laureates.

The Nobel Laureate is Peyton Rous.

Bill Chaney was the only person who got the right answer and he isn't eligible. There is no winner this week. Most of you guessed that it was HIV. One person—who shall not be named—guessed RSV and HIV with a total of five possible Nobel Laureates. That's only worth part marks. I'm expecting this person to be a winner real soon!

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I thought last week's molecule would be a challenge but Sandwalk readers came up with the correct answer even in the middle of summer in the Northern hemisphere. Considering how well you did last week, following up with this week's "molecule" should be a gift.

Identify the thing shown here and relate it to a Nobel Laureate.

The first person to identify the "molecule" and the Nobel Laureate(s), wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.

There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Ian Clarke of New England Biolabs Canada in Pickering ON, Canada. Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Dara Gilbert of the University of Waterloo, Anne Johnson of Ryerson University, and Cody Cobb, soon to be a graduate student at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

I have an extra free lunch for a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.

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(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours.

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The image is from Butan et al. (2008) [doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2007.12.003]