Cells use a morse code-like signal to switch genes on and off, researchers have found.

According to Professor Douglas Kell, who sits on the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and is a member of the research team, “This raises new challenges for drug designers. It appears that simply aiming to knock down signalling molecules with drugs, as many people are trying to do, may have weak or even undesirable effects as a range of signals could be cancelled out. It is going to be important in the future to decode the Morse-like messages from the molecules to make sure that only the desired effects are blocked.”

The signalling molecule focused on was NF-kappa B, the transcription factor involved in cell death and cell division.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council news release