Re: poly: weather exchange; longevity; drug testing

From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
Date: Mon May 11 1998 - 11:28:38 PDT

At 07:31 AM 5/11/98 MST, Rich Schroeppel wrote:
>
>Anyone besides me think that angiostatin/endostatin should be tested today
>on human volunteers?
>(There are probably supply problems: A,E are 500,200 peptide frags from
>two native proteins, so it's not as easy as setting some smart chemists to
>work to whip up a few tons.)

IIRC, they are engineering yeast to produce the appropriate proteins.
Biosynthesis is far more efficient for manufacturing these types of
compounds than laboratories will be for a good many years. Biosynthesis of
natural proteins also allows faster time to market, especially with recent
improvements in biotech. Engineering a commercial-grade process for
complex organics can take much longer than hijacking existing bio-machinery.

-James Rogers
 jamesr@best.com
Received on Mon May 11 18:35:00 1998

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