What we did was to use
a genetic approach, which is
an approach that we can use in this
particular type of plant to
look for telomere proteins,
new telomere proteins,
and we've discovered a new one.
And it turns out that this protein is
very important for the
chromosome and it's important for
the whole genome, and
maybe more importantly - it has a human
counterpart. And so we worked with
another team of
investigators at the University of Cincinnati
and we've discovered that it's critical
for human telomere biology as well.
So it's important
because it
provides an evolutionary link
between plants and humans, and it means that
plants are really a very useful
model for uncovering new
components of the telomere complex.
