Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Biotech News -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aknahow who wrote (62)	1/20/2000 12:34:00 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7143

Another attempt at the holy grail: Thursday January 20, 11:50 am Eastern Time Company Press Release Bio-IT Uses Information Technology to Shortcut Drug Discovery New Bioinformatic Technology Bridges Gap Between Human Genome and Drug Design HERZALIYA, Israel--(BW HealthWire)--Jan. 20, 2000--A new Israeli company has developed an information-based technology that dramatically shortens the drug discovery process. Bio-IT, (Bio-Information Technologies Ltd.) using a breakthrough computational tool is able to predict the 3-dimensional structure of proteins that can lead to drugs for the treatment of major diseases. Bio-IT's technology bridges the gap between information provided by the Human Genome Project and the design of disease-fighting molecules. The mapping of the Human Genome provides the DNA sequence of proteins that control certain diseases. However this information only describes the linear chemical sequences; in order to apply it to drug discovery, scientists must be able to picture the entire three-dimensional shape of naturally-occurring proteins. Until now, this deciphering has remained an awesome challenge, as there are millions of possible conformations for each protein. But Bio-IT, applying its novel technology to the DNA sequence of a family of proteins known as G-coupled protein receptors (GPCRs), has generated 3-D models that successfully reproduce accurate structures. Bio-IT plans to use its proprietary technologies to design and discover small-molecule drugs for GPCR-related ailments such as neurological and cardiovascular diseases, depression, obesity, pain and viral infections. About thirty percent of drugs in current use, interact with G-protein coupled receptors. Bio-IT's technology was developed by Dr. Oren Becker and collaborators at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Becker is an assistant professor of Computational Chemistry and Chemical Physics at the School of Chemistry of Tel-Aviv University. The company was founded by a partnership between Ramot of Tel Aviv University, Prof. Haim Aviv, Ph.D., a leading biotech entrepreneur, and Silvia Noiman, Ph.D., MBA, an experienced molecular biologist.