Latest Biomolecules Stories

A new method of analyzing squalene and squalane, oils often used in the production of cosmetics and vaccines, can show whether they came originally from the liver oil of deepwater sharks or from olive oil.In 2006 the European Union imposed deep-sea shark fishing limits in the North-East Atlantic, and since 2008 some important cosmetic firms have declared that they have stopped using shark squalane. Up to now however there has been no way that a manufacturers could determine whether the...

SAN DIEGO, May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HALO) today announced that Halozyme and Baxter have confirmed the presence of small flake-like glass particles in a limited number of vials of HYLENEX® (hyaluronidase human injection) product at the Baxter manufacturing facility. Earlier today, Halozyme notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that it is voluntarily recalling affected lots of 150U HYLENEX product from distribution. According to...

'Smart' catalysts programmed to recognize specific molecular shapeUsing a rare metal that's not utilized by nature, Rice University chemists have created a synthetic enzyme that could help unlock the identities of thousands of difficult-to-study proteins, including many that play key roles in cancer and other diseases.The research was published online this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society."We have combined the chemical capabilities of rhodium with what biology already...

Suspecting that a particular protein in tuberculosis was likely to be vital to the bacteria's survival, Johns Hopkins scientists screened 175,000 small chemical compounds and identified a potent class of compounds that selectively slows down this protein's activity and, in a test tube, blocks TB growth, demonstrating that the protein is indeed a vulnerable target.This class of chemical compounds attacks TB by inhibiting methionine aminopeptidase (MetAP), an essential enzyme found in organisms...

MADRID, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Centocor Ortho Biotech Products has informed PharmaMar SA (Grupo Zeltia, ZEL.MC) that the regulatory authorities in Israel, Panama and Ukraine have approved Yondelis(R) for advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS) in adults. Furthermore, the authorities in Paraguay and Azerbaijan have approved the drug for platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer (ROC). Yondelis is already approved for STS in Paraguay and Azerbaijan. The European Commission approved...

A team of Michigan State University scientists - using a new cooling method they created - has uncovered the inner workings of a key iron-containing enzyme, a discovery that could help researchers develop new medicines or understand how enzymes repair DNA.Taurine/alpha-ketoglutarate dioxygenase, known as TauD, is a bacterial enzyme that is important in metabolism. Enzymes in this family repair DNA, sense oxygen and help produce antibiotics.Specifically, the MSU team was interested in how iron...

Have you seen a spotted plaice? Probably. However, marine biologist Helen Nilsson Sköld at the University of Gothenburg is the first person to research the spotted insides of plaice.Many species of animal have skin or fur with intricate pigmentation patterns, which they use for camouflage, communication, regulation of body heat and protection against the sun. A study conducted by researchers at the Department of Marine Ecology at the University of Gothenburg has found that several species...

It is not unusual to hear people blame their metabolism after gaining a few pounds. But changes in metabolism "“ the process that shapes how our bodies turn food into energy -- can have much more sinister effects than making it hard to fit into your favorite jeans.In fact, differences in metabolic rates are known to exist between normal cells and tumor cells, though the mechanism behind it is unclear. Now new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests that the...

Chemists in Mülheim devise a new way of optimizing enzymes for industrial applicationsEngineers are unlikely to tinker with the cooling system if they want to increase the size of an engine. Yet chemists at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research have adopted an approach similar to this in their efforts to optimize an enzyme for practical applications. They substituted two amino acids at a site relatively distal to the biocatalyst's binding pocket, the location where the chemical...

Structure will help MU researchers determine function, develop drugs to inhibit enzymeIf subway terminals didn't exist and people had to exit subway stations to switch subway lines, transit time would increase. People also may encounter distractions, such as grabbing a cup of coffee, instead of getting on the other line. Molecules also use "terminals" to save transit time during enzyme-catalyzed processes. Using advanced X-radiation techniques, University of Missouri researchers were able to...