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Alpha Helix - Gamma Helix
While serving as the George Eastman Professor at Balliol College in Oxford, Pauling became ill with a head cold. Under orders to remain in bed for several days and bored with the detective novels he had been reading, Pauling began thinking about the problem of the structure of proteins. He sketched a polypeptide chain on a piece of paper, folded it along parallel lines and succeeded in conceptualizing two structures, the alpha-helix and the gamma-helix. Pauling's enforced bedrest was the cause of one of his most significant discoveries. The alpha-helix would have a profound influence on the way scientists thought about biological tissues. In particular, the alpha-helix model allowed researchers to postulate that differences in protein structure might be the source of division between normal cells and diseased cells. |
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