Enzyme Discovery May Lead to Better Heart and Stroke Treatments

piggy submitted, created time 1 week 4 days (www.sciencedaily.com)

A Queen's University study sheds new light on the way one of our cell enzymes, implicated in causing tissue damage after heart attacks and strokes, is normally kept under control.

Led by Biochemistry professor Peter Davies, the research team's discovery will be useful in developing new drug treatments that can aid recovery in stroke and heart disease, as well as lessen the effects of Alzheimer's and other neurologically degenerative diseases

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Blocking enzyme could help in rare blood cancer

jerry submitted, created time 2 months 1 week (www.reuters.com)

An enzyme that fights some kinds of cancers may foster the growth of a rare type of leukemia that affects babies, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that may lead to new drugs for the hard-to-treat disease. There is also talk of applications in Alzheimer's and diabetes.

The enzyme is called glycogen synthase kinase, or GSK3, and blocking it might be an effective way to treat this type of leukemia--for which chemotherapy is characteristically ineffective. Existing drugs used for bipolar disease seem to do a shaky but effective job.

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Mutation Spells Bad News for Breast Cancer Patients

New horizons in the creation of synthetic enzymes

Sue Wu submitted, created time 8 months 4 days (www.news-medical.net)

Mankind triumphed in a recent "competition" against nature when scientists succeeded in creating a new type of enzyme for a reaction for which no naturally occurring enzyme has evolved.

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Enzyme Structure Reveals New Drug Targets for Cancer and Other Diseases

Eric wu submitted, created time 9 months 1 week (www.sciencedaily.com)

If the genome is the parts list of the human cell, certain proteins are the production managers, activating and deactivating genes as needed. Scientists funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, now have a clearer understanding of how a key protein controls gene activity and how mutations in the protein may cause disease. The work could provide new avenues to design drugs aimed at cancer, diabetes, HIV, and heart disease.

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Protein prize up for grabs after retraction

sumsung submitted, created time 9 months 2 weeks (www.nature.com)

A retraction of a paper by a high-profile chemist has left a prize on the table in the protein-design field, and now, another scientist is poised to grab the limelight. On 1 February, Homme Hellinga and two former students retracted a June 2004 paper that had been lauded as a breakthrough in the field of protein design. A mistake in the experimental procedure meant that their conclusion wasn't valid

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Semen protein raises HIV infection risk

Eric wu submitted, created time 11 months 2 days (www.rsc.org)

Scientists have identified a protein in human semen that increases the risk of HIV infection up to 100,000 fold. The discovery could provide new drug targets and strategies for combating the global AIDS epidemic.

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Deciphering An Enzyme's Function By Molecular Docking

june submitted, created time 1 year 3 weeks (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Fitting a key into a lock may seem like a simple task, but researchers at Texas A&M University are using a method that involves testing thousands of keys to unlock the functions of enzymes, and their findings could open the door for new targets for drug designs.

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Liverpool amongst first in UK to install unique DNA sequencing technology

bianjie submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.liv.ac.uk)

Unique technology, that uses the enzymes of fireflies to read the genetic code of DNA, has been installed at the University of Liverpool.

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