Drosophila commonly are used as model organisms.  As many as 70 percent of human disease genes have homologues in Drosophila, making these organisms useful for identifying particular disease genes as...
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Asymmetric synthesis is important in the pharmaceutical industry because frequently only one optically active isomer, or enantiomer, is therapeutically active. Therefore, it is often desirable to sele...
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Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of monounsaturated fatty acids. SCDs may influence the development of diseases such as obesity, atherosclerosis and diabet...
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Suspension crystallization processes often result in crystals with a wide range of particle sizes.  Accurately controlling the distribution of shapes and sizes is a challenge in the pharmaceutical ma...
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Patch clamping is a well known method for measuring the flow of ions and molecules through ion channels imbedded in the cellular membrane.  The method employs micropipettes, or similar microscale ape...
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Many of the compounds used in drug discovery by pharmaceutical companies are glycosylated, bacterial secondary metabolites. A glycosylated metabolite consists of a central core structure (aglycon) and...
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Accurate monitoring of gene expression is critical to determining those patterns of expression correlating with exposure to certain drugs or toxins. By elucidating these patterns, researchers may be a...
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Behavioral and physiological processes in nearly all organisms display 24-hour rhythms that are controlled by a circadian pacemaker, or clock. Over the past several years, many proteins and transcript...
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The SCN5A gene encodes a human cardiac sodium (Na+) channel alpha subunit that carries the inward Na+ current in the heart. Three distinct polymorphic SCN5A clones, hH1, hH1a and hH1b, have been isola...
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The gene mdm2 is a negative regulator of p53, which plays a key role in apoptosis and is important in chemotherapy. Mice with knockout mutations in mdm2 would be useful in studying this gene; however,...
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The human heart sodium channel beta1 subunit is a protein encoded by a single gene. It interacts with the alpha subunit to alter the functional properties of the channel.
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Biological membranes, such as cell membranes, are intrinsically impermeable to ions and polar molecules. Thus, transport of ions through biological membranes requires special channel or pump proteins ...
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The liver detoxifies many of the drugs and toxins in blood, which poses a problem in drug development and testing because drugs are rapidly cleared from the system. In the mammalian fetus, the liver i...
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The human ERG gene encodes a potassium channel that is expressed in the heart. Mutations in the HERG channel are a common cause of long QT syndrome, a disorder associated with delayed cardiac repolari...
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Cardiac IKr channels are targets associated with inherited and acquired long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disorder that can lead to ventricular arrhythmias. Previously, IKr channels were thought to be compos...
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The human heart sodium channel beta1 subunit (SCNB1) is a protein encoded by a single gene. It interacts with the alpha subunit to alter the functional properties of the channel. In addition, SCNB1 is...
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Most biochemical interactions are studied in solutions containing dilute concentrations of molecules. However, the complexity of the cellular environment makes it difficult to compare the results of s...
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No well-characterized prostate stromal cell lines currently exist.
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The human either-a-go-go related gene (HERG1 or KCNH2) potassium channel is critical to maintaining normal cardiac rhythm. Because unintended block of HERG channel activity by drugs can cause long QT ...
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As the incidence of antibiotic resistance among bacteria continues to rise, the discovery of new antibacterial compounds has become increasingly critical to fighting infectious disease. According to t...
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Influenza viruses show strong potential as vaccine and gene delivery vectors: they do not replicate through DNA intermediates (which may incorporate into the host genome); they elicit strong immune re...
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Re-polarization of the cardiac action potential, which plays a critical role in maintaining normal cardiac rhythm, occurs mainly due to the action of potassium ion (K+) currents in the heart. The most...
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Few treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, have been discovered.  In many cases, the molecular basis for neurodegeneration remains unknown...
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Current methods for isolating and culturing primary (stem/progenitor) cells remain unsatisfactory because most primary cells die when transferred to culture, and the remaining cells usually develop mu...
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One of the key potassium channels in the heart is formed by the co-assembly of protein products from the KvLQT1 (KCNQ1) and minK (KCNE1) genes, which produce the slowly activating delayed rectifier po...
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