Tag: Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Department

  • Health

    Harvard Medical School signs agreement with Merck to develop potential therapy for macular degeneration

    Harvard Medical School announced May 23, 2006 that is has signed a multimillion-dollar license agreement with Merck & Co. Inc. to develop potential therapies for macular degeneration, an eye disease that affects older people and can lead to blindness. The agreement provides Merck, through an affiliate, with licenses to specific molecules that could ultimately slow…

    1–2 minutes
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    DNA copier component found to be real drag

    A study in the Feb. 2, 2006 Nature by Antoine van Oijen’s lab sheds light on a longstanding puzzle in DNA replication: how do the enzymes that copy the two strands of DNA manage to coordinate their separate movements? Replicating the genome is complicated by a quirk of DNA chemistry: DNA has polarity, and the…

    2–3 minutes
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    Disparate proteins structurally identical

    Gerhard Wagner, the Elkan Blout professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Tucker Collins, the S. Burt Wolbach professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, made a crucial connection between two unrelated proteins. They were studying a particular type of protein when a database search for proteins with similar structures turned…

    1–2 minutes
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    RNA-making apparatus seen to uncoil and recoil DNA

    Eukaryotic cells like to keep their DNA under wraps, winding the long strands of nucleic acid around millions of little protein complexes. This bead-on-a-string structure, called chromatin, ensures that the DNA is protected and also helps to condense the long strands of nucleic acid so they more easily are accommodated in the nucleus. Chromatin also…

    1–2 minutes
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    Molecule implicated in transcription termination

    When a protein is made its DNA code must first be rewritten as messenger RNA (mRNA). This process of transcription requires a large enzyme complex, RNA polymerase, to begin at the start of a gene, work its way along copying the DNA into mRNA, and then stop when it gets to the end. Therein lies…

    1–2 minutes