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March
31, 2003 |
Stopping Artery Blockages Before They
Begin
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Thomas Griffin |
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Lakshmi Santhanam, a graduate student at Rensselaer, is searching
for molecules with properties that may someday be used as medicines
able to pre-empt the damaging inflammatory response involved in
atherosclerosis. Santhanam, a chemical engineering student working
with Jonathan Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann ‘42 Professor
of Chemical Engineering, is helping to develop a novel technique
that saves costs and could aid in the speedy discovery of additional
drugs to address other chronic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis
and asthma.
They presented their research at the 225th national
meeting of the American Chemical Society, held March 23-27 in
New Orleans, La.
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This research aims to discover new
drugs that may selectively block the action of NADPH oxidase
and lead to effective therapies to prevent cardiovascular
disease.
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An enzyme called NADPH oxidase has been implicated
in causing heart disease by generating free radicals that cause
arteries to thicken, eventually leading to blockage. The known
heart-healthy benefits of certain phytochemicals (such as those
found in red wine and green tea) are thought to stem from their
natural ability to scavenge free radicals. Recent work by the
Rensselaer team and a number of other researchers, however, indicates
that these chemicals may possess an even more important activity
that involves inhibiting the assembly of the active enzyme. This
research aims to discover new drugs that may selectively block
the action of NADPH oxidase and lead to effective therapies to
prevent cardiovascular disease.
Dordick and Santhanam select potentially effective
molecules and use a modern microarray technique to attach minute
amounts of precursors of potential NADPH oxidase inhibitors to
glass slides. Molecules chosen for further screening are examined
for biological activity against the damaging NADPH oxidase enzyme.
The “biocatalysis lab-on-a-slide”
technique was originally developed by Dordick, Santhanam, and
Michael Hogg, a biologist at the Veterans Administration in Albany.
The tiny samples required allow the researchers to look at hundreds
of different molecules at once, speeding research and conserving
costly lab resources. Compared to standard methods, a single scientist
using the new technique can screen thousands more samples per
day, using minute amounts of chemicals. This means that a new
drug could be developed in substantially less time and for a fraction
of what it costs today.
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