In the hope of contributing to the development of new medicines, SINTEF’s biotechnologists, represented here by senior scientist Geir Kli...
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| In the hope of contributing to the development of new medicines, SINTEF’s biotechnologists, represented here by senior scientist Geir Klinkenberg, are hunting for promising genes in marine bacteria. Credit: SINTEF/Thor Nielsen |
Norwegian scientists are opening the gates of nature's secret medicine factories, with the aim of giving us new weapons against cancers and resistant bacteria.
For decades, bacteria have served society by producing antibiotics – the chemical compounds that can cure infectious diseases. However, it is possible that many natural microorganisms carry the recipes for the medicines of the future hidden in their genetic material, without this part of their genetic code being activated or "switched on".
But now, biotechnologists from SINTEF – the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia, and NTNU – The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, are developing technology that will make it easier to find – and exploit – these hidden and unutilised medicine factories in bacteria that exist in the natural environment.
The hunt will concentrate on marine bacteria, and is one of the projects run by the new Norwegian Centre for Digital Life.
"Our aim is to identify novel compounds that are capable, for example, of killing cancer cells or antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The technology that we are developing will reduce the time taken to search for these and to make the production process more efficient," says Alexander Wentzel, a senior scientist at SINTEF.
Focus on cryptic genetic material
"Microorganisms" is the general term used to cover bacteria, fungi and yeasts. Bacteria are so small that there is room for several billion of them in a millilitre of liquid feed.
When the world discovered microorganisms that were capable of creating substances that inhibit infections, the natural properties of these organisms were at the centre of focus. The selected organisms were cultivated to produce chemical compounds that could be isolated and had already been used to fight other microorganisms in nature's own food-bowl.
However, in the hope of developing new medicines to fight cancer, and new antibiotics that act on resistant bacteria, scientists and the pharmaceutical industry have now begun to interest themselves in the genetic material that is NOT activated when bacteria are cultivated in the laboratory.
"Switched-off" microbial genes could be used to create useful bioactive substances that are unknown today. However, until now it has been very laborious to explore this genetic information, so scientists have been forced to search through a small number of genes at a time. "This is where our technology can be of help," says Wentzel.Source:Phys.org>Read More>
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