Since the discovery of enzymes as biological catalysts, study of their enormous catalytic power and exquisite specificity has been central to biochemistry. Nevertheless, there is no universally accepted comprehensive description. Rather, numerous proposals have been presented over the past half century. The difficulty in developing a comprehensive description for the catalytic power of enzymes ...

Enzymes are biological catalysts (also known as biocatalysts) that speed up biochemical reactions in living organisms, and which can be extracted from cells and then used to catalyse a wide range of commercially important processes. This chapter covers the basic principles of enzymology, such as classification, structure, kinetics and inhibition, and also provides an overview of industrial appl...

The herbal formulation, DRF/AY/5001, elicits hypoglycemic/antidiabetic effects in both normal and experimentally induced hyperglycemic (epinephrine and alloxan) rats. Further, herbal formulation treatment can significantly alter the pattern of glucose tolerance in normal and diabetic rats. It is possible that the herbal formulation may act through both, pancreatic and extra-pancreatic mechanism...

This review highlights the biosynthesis of heterocycles in polyketide natural products with a focus on oxygen and nitrogen-containing heterocycles with ring sizes between 3 and 6 atoms. Heterocycles are abundant structural elements of natural products from all classes and they often contribute significantly to their biological activity. Progress in recent years has led to a much better understa...

This is a compilation of reference materials suggested for scientists considering a laboratory reference collection in clinical chemistry, or for librarians seeking to develop or add to an up-t-o-date library collection. Nine areas are represented: general clinical chemistry; analytical methods, procedures, and techniques; calculations and statistics; the clinical laboratory; drugs and metaboli...

Molecular Enzymology Group Colloquium Organized by D. Fell (School of Biological and Molecular Sciences, Oxford Brooke University) and D. Kell (Department of Biological Sciences, University College, Wales, Aberystwyth), Edited by D. Fell and Sponsored by Xenova Ltd, Zeneca Bioproducts, Glaxo Research and Development Ltd and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. 653rd Meeting held at the Universit...

Accurate, economical and high-throughput gene and genome synthesis is essential to the development of synthetic biology and biotechnology. New large-scale gene synthesis methods harnessing the power of DNA microchips have recently been demonstrated. Yet, the technology is still compromised by a high occurrence of errors in the synthesized products. These errors still require substantial effort ...

Introd u ction Clinical chemistry, for decades restricted to a limited number of chemical tests, has, in recent years, through an increasing awareness of the value of the laboratory investigation of disease, and the introduc­ tion of automation and sophisticated instru­ mentation, expanded its field of operations to include a bewildering variety of tests. Advances in biochemical knowledge have ...

Nanomedicines In article 2201140 by Hsin-Cheng Chiu and co-workers, an oral polysaccharide microgel formulation containing dual-modality therapeutic nanoparticles developed for local treatment of colon cancer is imparted to hierarchical targeting residues, leading increases in retention cell uptake nanotherapeutics. With enzymatic degradation dextran microgels occurring exclusively the colon, n...

Chemi-enzymatic synthesis of ribavirin acrylate and subsequent RAFT co-polymerization with acrylic acid afforded a formulation of a broad spectrum antiviral drug which avoids accumulation in erythrocytes, the origin of the main side effect of ribavirin. In cultured macrophages the macromolecular prodrugs exhibited decreased toxicity while maintaining the anti-inflammatory action of ribavirin.