Mamma always warned me about those biochemists.
It was a Friday night and I was hanging out with a friend. The two of us were engrossed in a conversation about movies, sports, relationships or something equally benign.
“. . . amino acid. . .”
We turned.
“. . . and the REALLY interesting thing about it is that it’s a transcriptional regulatory co-factor that’s comprised entirely of beta sheets not a single alpha helix. The thing that I don’t understand though is that in the 157 position there’s a tryptophan. TRYPTOPHAN!! I mean tryptophan is huge and you would think that its removal would destroy the functionality of the protein. Tryptophan is the one with all of the overlapping pi orbitals and then you can draw all of the resonance structures. And it has a nitrogen atom; I think that the electron pair in the nitrogen atom, well whether you have an electron pair there depends on the pH of the solution. Anyway, I need to get back to work.”
The room was silent and the two of us were again alone.
We weren’t quite sure what happened, but we were left with full color handouts and notes were scrawled on the wall.
Drive by seminar.
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