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Biotech / Medical : Kosan BioSciences -- KOSN -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: keokalani'nui who wrote (19)	7/18/2001 8:31:15 PM
From: keokalani'nui	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 933

Didn't see this doubletwist article posted here before. doubletwist.com ...Kosan scientists have been able to clone the DNA responsible for the six enzymes that construct epothilone and introduce it into the microbe Streptomyces coelicolor. The ability of this engineered bug to recombinantly produce epothilone was reported in Science in January 2000, and the company is currently trying to scale up production of the compound. For investors, that success, if matched by success in ramping up production and proving the safety and efficacy of epothilone D, will spell a home run for Kosan. But what may be more interesting for the long-term prospects of the company is the fact that they've shown an ability to successfully manipulate genetic information to engineer the production of polyketides. It's no small task, requiring the manipulation of various enzymes in a metabolic pathway such that they make predictable and desirable changes to an end product. But as Santi is quick to point out, it is a "modular" system that Kosan now knows well. Polyketides are chain or ring structures made up of ketone groups, and are present in the natural world in great abundance and variety. They usually are produced by fungi or bacteria like actinomycetes. (There's more.) Wilder

To: keokalani'nui who wrote (19)	2/8/2002 4:00:17 AM
From: nigel bates	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 933

Maxygen is doing what larger companies often do: It's sitting back and waiting to see if tiny Kosan can really work antibiotic wizardry. "What we are doing in this area at the moment is nothing," says Russell Howard, chief executive of Maxygen. In order to make these drugs, "we would really form some kind of alliance with companies like Kosan."... Looks as though MAXY have stopped sitting back & doing nothing - Message 17032940 ... Maxygen scientists describe the use of its proprietary whole genome shuffling (WGS) technologies to develop new bacterial strains with increased capacity to produce a commercial polyketide antibiotic... nig