Nirosha (Narosha/Nirosha) Murugan (guest/researcher)

You certainly are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know how to use these.

I'm Narosha Murugan, an applied biophysicist from Waterloo, Canada.

And most biophysicists look at mostly bio.

I'm on the other end, who likes to be 50-50.

I mean, I can tell you a very specific moment in grad school that... Tell me.

When I was living in the dorms and I was making mashed potatoes and I burnt myself.

And then, I don't know why I thought this, but I thought it was really exciting.

Yeah.

How quickly that information of me burning my hand went into my body for me to remove my hand.

Like that signal had to go up my arm.

Things had to change and move all the way back down my arm for me to remove it.

Think of the molecular interactions.

And suddenly it just seemed impossible.

When we think about a protein, proteins have a very specific shape, and that shape determines their function.

So when you think of a cell doing what it needs to do, on the surface of a cell there are other proteins, which is what we call receptors.

And those receptors have a shape to them.

And for them to interact, there needs to be a physical interaction of that protein into the receptor.