The Popular Kinases

Much of kinase research has focused on a sliver of the known kinases, and some Canadian researchers have looked into why that is, reports the Physics arXiv Blog at Technology Review. That specific focus by the researchers on just some portion of what could be studied is called the Harlow-Knapp effect, the blog adds. The University of Toronto's Ruth Isserlin and colleagues note in a paper posted to arXiv that even the publication of the human kinome did little to alter researchers' focus away from the best-known kinases. "We posit that the [Harlow-Knapp] effect likely derives from a combination of human nature, the structure of the funding and peer-review systems and the availability of research infrastructure and methods," the authors write.