Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Algorithms And A Software Application For The Discovery Of Heparin-Binding Proteins For Chemical Analysis, Christopher Dempewolf

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Heparin is a biological molecule that plays a vital role in anticoagulation. As such, it is used for the prevention of blood clotting in a variety of medical disorders. However, it is easily contaminated with foreign substances, and this can prove fatal for a person receiving heparin. In order to prevent this, proteins that easily bind to heparin need to be added to the solution. Then, the unwanted substances can easily be filtered out. Certain sequences or patterns of amino acids are known to have a high probability of binding to heparin. Thus, proteins that contain large numbers of these …