Thursday, September 20, 2007

Artemis


One of the key enzymes in lymphocyte V(D)J Recombination is called Artemis. Although I sometimes dislike random names for proteins and biological molecules (I never liked "Toll" or "Hedgehog"), I thought this was a cool title. Artemis, daughter of Zeus and Leto, is the maiden of the hunt (you can see the quiver on her back). She's often associated with the moon (her brother Apollo is associated with the sun). I guess Artemis really has very little to do with nuclease activity at hairpin turns, but I happen to like it.

The image is "Diana of Versailles" also known as "Artemis with a Hind" from the Louvre. It is from Wikipedia and in the public domain.

No comments: