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

To: tuck who wrote (82)	6/12/2002 9:30:30 AM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 933

Baby steps . . . >>HAYWARD, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--June 12, 2002--Kosan Biosciences Incorporated (Nasdaq:KOSN - News) announced today that it has been awarded a $2 million Advanced Technology Program (ATP) grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to support fundamental research in the "de novo assembly of polyketide synthases (PKSs) by combinatorial biosynthesis". Polyketides are a class of natural products produced in soil micro-organisms that have yielded pharmaceuticals important in the treatment of cancer, infectious diseases, high cholesterol, transplant rejection and other diseases. The identity and position of each 2-carbon atom unit of a polyketide are determined by the identity and position of a corresponding "module" of a large multi-modular enzyme called a polyketide synthase (PKS); each PKS module is in turn encoded for by DNA in a PKS gene cluster. Theoretically, any polyketide synthase, and hence any polyketide, could be assembled by appropriate combinations of DNA coding for modules in one or more PKS gene clusters. However, in current practice, recombining PKS modules only rarely leads to a functional PKS and resultant polyketide product because the "rules" that govern the ability of the modules to work together are largely unknown. The prestigious NIST -- ATP three year grant was awarded to support Kosan in seeking to solve the problem of combining modules from different PKS genes to make a novel, productive PKS that produces a desired polyketide -- a process Kosan refers to as "morphing." Kosan plans to use a combinatorial approach to become the first to learn a comprehensive set of "rules" with high predictive power on how to combine modules. Daniel V. Santi, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kosan, said, "If we are successful in defining the rules for morphing PKSs, we could produce virtually any polyketide from our current collection of polyketide genes by 'mixing and matching' appropriate modules. "For example, we could develop expression systems in bacteria that produce currently inaccessible polyketides, such as anti-cancer agents that have been found in very limited amounts in rare sponges, we could produce a desired polyketide without the delay in isolating, sequencing and expressing a huge gene cluster, and we could create novel polyketide structures and libraries almost at will. As a result, the technology, if successfully developed, would be a significant breakthrough in obtaining these potentially important molecules."<< snip Cheers, Tuck