Phys.org  August 8, 2023 The human genome encodes approximately 20,000 proteins, many still uncharacterized. It has become clear that scientific research tends to focus on well-studied proteins, leading to a concern that poorly understood genes are unjustifiably neglected. To address this, researchers in the UK have developed a publicly available and customizable “Unknome database” that ranks proteins based on how little is known about them. They applied RNA interference (RNAi) in Drosophila to 260 unknown genes that are conserved between flies and humans. Knockdown of some genes resulted in loss of viability, and functional screening of the rest revealed hits […]