Biophysics

E.F. Pai, W. Kabsch, U. Krengel, K.C. Holmes, et al., "Structure of the guanine-nucleotide-binding domain of the Ha-ras oncogene product p21 in the triphosphate conformation," Nature, 341, 209-14, 21 September 1989.

Emil F. Pai (Max-Planck-Institut für Medizinische Forschung, Heidelberg, Germany): "The best way to have one's paper featured in the `Hot Papers' section is to work in a `hot' field of research. At this moment, there is barely any `hotter' field than oncogenes in cancer research. Moreover, a picture is worth more than a thousand words. X-ray crystallography provides you with just that: pictures of the three-dimensional structures of molecules. "Ha-ras p21 is the first oncogene product whose molecular structure has been determined. This paper described the `on,' or active, form, in which the protein is complexed to a guanosine triphosphate. The results established that the chain fold of the p21 protein is very similar to that of the GDP-domain...