Hello All
Was just looking through the Australian news and came across this article. Thought you might find it interesting.
Go Biota!
From AAP
25jul98
SHARES in Biota Holdings gained more than 5 per cent yesterday following news of a world breakthrough in a diabetes project the pharmaceutical research company is partly funding.
Scientists working on a project at the CSIRO and the Biomolecular Research Institute in Melbourne have achieved a world-first advance by describing the structure of a vital receptor found on the surface of the body cells of all animals, including human beings.
"The discovery, reported in this week's issue of the international scientific journal Nature, has major implications for our understanding of the mechanisms behind growth and development, and diseases such as diabetes and many forms of cancer," Biota said. The announcement pushed Biota shares 27c higher to $5.10. Biota and the Federal Government's AusIndustry were funding the project, which might ultimately result in a drug development or licensing arrangements, Biota said.
"We are delighted to be associated with this discovery," said chief executive officer Hugh Niall.
"It represents an advance in our joint diabetes program with CSIRO and the BRI, and also has significance for other important areas of biology and medicine." CSIRO Molecular Science's Colin Ward, a joint leader of the project, said the team's goal was to understand the atomic structure of a particular family of receptors, sites on the cell surface which detected chemical messengers such as insulin, IGF (or insulin-like growth factor) and EGF (epidermal growth factor). He said receptors were a vital link in the body's command chain.
Messenger chemicals such as hormones and growth factors attached and switched on their special receptor, which in turn commanded the cell to perform particular tasks, such as to grow or to process sugar.
The Australian team is the first in the world to clarify the structure of half of the IGF receptor, marking a scientific milestone in a field of research that has been running since the late 1960s.
"The IGF, insulin and EGF receptors are all in the same family and their structures are expected to be 90 per cent similar - so understanding the crystal structure of the IGF receptor helps us to understand most of the structure of all three," he said. |
