Researchers at CABM awarded $11 million
Archived article from Dec 9, 2002
By Joseph Blumberg
Structural biology is an emerging science concentrating on the physical design and chemistry of large, biologically important molecules — proteins in particular. Recognizing the importance of this leading-edge field, National Institutes of Health has awarded more than $11 million in new protein structural biology grants to researchers at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM), a joint institute of Rutgers and University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Proteins are significant because they are the machines that carry out the fundamental biological processes of life. "Charting these molecular structures will lead us to a clearer understanding of how proteins work and will provide opportunities for the development of new drugs to treat human diseases," said Joseph J. Seneca, university vice president for academic affairs."
The major tools for these investigations are X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), both of which are strong suits at CABM.
The Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium, headed by CABM's Gaetano Montelione, is getting $6.5 million of the new NIH funds, constituting the third year of funding in a five-year, $27 million project. The consortium, which includes nine universities and research institutes, seeks first to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost associated with structural biology. It now costs some $300,000 to delineate the three-dimensional structure of a protein molecule; the researchers would like to reduce this to $10,000 or $20,000.
Biochemist Montelione, a professor at Rutgers and UMDNJ, points out that the instructions for assembling proteins are car- ried in our genes. With the recent completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists are now aware of tens of thousands of previously unknown proteins, whose role in the body is not yet fully understood. Consortium scientists plan to use the refined and streamlined technologies they develop to study some of these newly discovered proteins.
Eddy Arnold, another CABM member and a Rutgers chemistry professor, directs a four-pronged AIDS research program that has captured $4.6 million of the NIH funds. The emergence of drug-resistant strains of the disease has created an urgent need for new therapies, he asserts. Using structural biology approaches, Arnold and colleagues from Rutgers, the University of Pittsburgh and NIH are beginning to develop the next generation of anti-AIDS drugs.
The target of their research is a protein called reverse transcriptase (RT), used by the AIDS virus to spread disease throughout the body. Using X-ray crystallography and specialized biochemistry, the team will first delineate the protein's structural details, then use that information to design new synthetic compounds that cripple RT. Working with New Jersey's pharmaceutical industry, the most effective compounds will be selected for testing in clinical trials.
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