Question: I find your work very interesting and comprehensive Stephen? Do you just focus mainly your research around protein or any other aspects on chemistry/biology?

Stephen Curry answered on 22 Jun 2010:

Hi Giuola – we discussed this in the chat this morning, didn’t we? Our work is concentrated on the structures of proteins – mostly ones that belong to viruses or ones that are hijacked by viruses when they get into the cell.

It takes quite a bit of effort to work out the structure but once we have that we are in a good position to try to figure out how it works – most proteins are interesting nano-machines of one sort or another. To do that we usually collaborate with other scientists who are either in th eUK or in other parts of the world.

It is usually quite easy to send an email to someone you know is an expert with a technique you want to use and say “Hey – we just got an interesting result. Could we work together to take it to the next stage?” It can be a very friendly business (sometimes!).