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The mid-nineteenth century saw the development of a radical new direction in chemistry: instead of simply analyzing existing molecules, chemists began to synthesize them—including molecules that did not exist in nature. The combination of this new synthetic approach with more traditional analytical approaches revolutionized chemistry, leading to a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of chemical structure and reactivity and to the emergence of the modern pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The history of synthetic chemistry offers a possible roadmap for the development and impact of synthetic biology, a nascent field in which the goal is to build novel biological systems.
Assigning function to uncharacterized enzymes discovered through genome projects has provided a great challenge to the fields of informatics, enzymology and structural biology. Docking potential ligands into flexible models of protein structures and docking potential high-energy intermediates, rather than substrates, into known structures are two new computational approaches that have provided a much-needed boost to the field.
The physiological significance of thiaminase II has escaped our understanding for many years. The recent discovery of a new thiamine salvage pathway shows that this enzyme is involved in the regeneration of precursors for thiamine biosynthesis.
High-throughput screening has become increasingly important in academic research over the last decade. The diversity of chemical and biological space being probed by academic chemical screening, coupled with the public reporting of results, has created an important new resource of data for chemical biologists.
A new division of The Scripps Research Institute that is dedicated to biomedical research and drug discovery is taking shape on the shores of southern Florida.
Chemical probes reveal Hsp90 to be a key molecule for the control of apoptosis in small-cell lung cancer—with important implications for Hsp90 biology and cancer treatment.
Sequencing of the genome of a newly isolated marine actinomycete has revealed the potential to make a gamut of interesting compounds with potential as therapeutic agents. Deep-sea environments may yield new chemical structures not found in microbes from traditional terrestrial habitats.