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Biotech / Medical : Leukosite (LKST)promising new biotech Cy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Larry Liebman who wrote (3)	2/12/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: Darth Vader	Respond to of 35

I would venture to say that LKST is grossly undervalued when compared to the potential application of chemokine receptor inhibitors! On a private basis this company would fetch well in excess of $100m.

To: Larry Liebman who wrote (3)	4/14/1998 3:50:00 AM
From: scaram(o)uche	Respond to of 35

Springer is a founder and Chair of the SAB of LKST..... 05:54 PM ET 04/13/98 Atomic images may offer new route to cure colds (Writes through with quotes from second researcher) By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers said Monday they had moved a step closer to curing the common cold by creating an image of the doorway used by the cold virus to infect human cells. They used a technique known as X-ray crystallography to make an atomic map of the receptor, a kind of chemical doorway, that the virus uses to infect cells. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the two teams of researchers said their finding could possibly lead to a treatment for the common cold, which is currently incurable. ''This will enable chemists to design better ... drug molecules that can bind to the virus and block its ability to bind to the receptor,'' Timothy Springer of Harvard Medical School, who led one study, said in a telephone interview. The receptor is called ICAM-1, for intracellular adhesion molecule one. It consists of a single protein and looks like a five-part arm extending from a ''shoulder'' in the cell's outside membrane. The two teams have figured out the structure of the first two parts of the arm, known as domains, at the ''hand'' end where the virus attaches. ''Our study shows that the very top of the ICAM-1 molecule is shaped somewhat like a hand, with a thumb and three projections or fingers,'' said Jordi Bella, a researcher at Purdue University in Indiana, who worked on the second study. Usually, the receptor molecules help hold infection-fighting immune cells in place while they do their work after an injury or trauma. But the family of rhinoviruses responsible for 70 percent of human colds have hijacked the receptor to get into the cells they infect. ''Normally white blood cells bind to the thumb-like projections,'' Bella said. ''But the virus binds to the three finger-like projections, and interacts with the receptor to gain entry into the cell.'' Michael Rossmann, a biology professor at Purdue University who led one of the studies and who first mapped the structure of the cold virus in 1986, said humans and chimpanzees may have unique ICAM-1 receptors, which would explain why only people and their close relatives, the chimps, catch colds. ''The shell of the rhinovirus has deep crevices or canyons capable of interacting with the finger-like projections of the ICAM-1 receptor,'' Rossmann said in a statement. ''The virus probably has adapted itself to be able to attach to this particular molecule in humans, so that they fit in exactly, similar to a lock and key.'' Springer, a molecular biologist and immunologist, says the virus chose its target well. ''If you imagine a virus that is about to land on a cell, the binding site for the virus would be pointed straight up, ready to be a touchdown pad,'' he said. ''It's positioned optimally for the virus.'' After it latches onto a cell, the rhinovirus wraps itself around it, attaching to even more of the ICAM receptors and injecting its genetic material into the cell. ''It kills the cells that it infects,'' Springer said. ''But first it makes them produce the proteins that are required to construct the virus and make more copies of the virus.'' Springer said the virus, which attacks the epithelial cells in the nose -- the surface cells that line the nasal passages -- probably also stimulated the cells that make mucus. This would explain the sneezing the runny nose caused by a cold, which would suit the virus's purpose. ''It may stimulate the nose to make more mucus in a way that will help spread the virus,'' he said. ^REUTERS@