RETIREMENT LIVING

"Mom's happy
and enjoying her
new lifestyle."

When dad died, I watched
helplessly as my fun-loving,
outgoing mom stayed home
most nights. When she visited

The Park at Trowbridge,

she quickly saw residents
interacting and enjoying
their time together.

.111

We knew Mom was fully settled
when she stopped keeping up
with her TV soap operas. She
leaves for breakfast at 8:30 and
sometimes doesn't return to her
apartment until evening.

SpetiA

SAS,'
■ ,A\1 IA' 1 t s

Mom's building new memories
and meeting new friends. My
sister and I are happy knowing
Mom's involved and enjoying

599 9

life again.

For more information
or to visit, call
The Park today!
(248) 352-0208

Arnie S. — son of resident Edith S.

e).

24111 Civic Center Dr.
Southfield, MI 48033

www.horizonbay.com

at Trowbridge

1298260

.--.. A Iftiagsti

The Brightest Tonun•ows Begin Here. ®

Sawa CemomouLly

.Wishipg All Of Our
Customers, Families
and Friends a Happy & Healthy

NEW YEAR!

ivi & Yaffa S.Ilevach

Leeat, Adam, Rachel & Daniel Baker

r3"-

ELET
CIR

'9500 W. 9 Mile Rd. • Farmington Hills

248-613-7788

102

September 13 • 2007

JN

To Life!

HEALTH & FITNESS

Fighting Back

Protein studies aid healing.

Rehovot, Israel

0

ur bodies could not main-
tain their existence without
thousands of proteins
performing myriad vital tasks within
cells. Since malfunctioning proteins
can cause disease, the study of protein
structure and function can lead to the
development of drugs and treatments
for numerous disorders.
For example, the discovery of insu-
lin's role in diabetes paved the way for
insulin injections. Yet, despite enor-
mous research efforts led by scientists
worldwide, the cellular function of
numerous proteins is still unknown.
To reveal this function, scientists per-
form various genetic manipulations to
increase or decrease the production of
a certain protein, but existing manipu-
lations are complicated and do not
fully meet researchers' needs.
Professor Mordechai Liscovitch
and graduate student Oran Erster of
the Weizmann Institute's Biological
Regulation Department, together
with Dr. Miri Eisenstein of Chemical
Research Support, have recently devel-
oped a unique "switch" that can con-
trol the activity of any protein, raising
it several-fold or stopping it almost
completely.
The method provides researchers
with a simple and effective tool for
exploring unknown proteins.
The switch has a genetic and
chemical components: Using genetic
engineering, the scientists insert a
short segment of amino acids into the
amino acid sequence making up the
protein. This segment is capable of
binding strongly and selectively to a
particular chemical drug, which affects
the activity level of the engineered
protein by increasing or reducing it.
When the drug is no longer applied,
or when it is removed from the sys-
tem, the protein returns to its natural
activity level.
As reported recently in the journal
Nature Methods, the first stage consists
of preparing a set of genetically engi-
neered proteins with the amino acid
segment inserted in different places.

In the second stage, the engineered
proteins are screened to identify the
ones that respond to the drug in a
desired manner.
The researchers have discovered that
in some of the engineered proteins the
drug increased the activity level, while
in others this activity was reduced.
Says Liscovitch, "We were surprised
by the effectiveness of the method. It
turns out that a small set of engineered
proteins is needed to find the ones that
respond to the drug. With their greater
resources, biotechnology companies
will be able to create much larger sets
of engineered proteins in order to find
one that best meets their needs."
The method developed by the
Weizmann Institute is ready for imme-
diate use, both in basic biomedical
research and in the pharmaceutical
industry, in the search for proteins that
can serve as targets for new drugs.
Beyond offering a potent tool that
can be applied to any protein, the
method has an important advantage
compared with other techniques: It
allows the total and precise control
over the activity of an engineered
protein.
In addition, the method could be
used one day in gene therapy. It may
be possible to replace damaged pro-
teins that cause severe diseases with
genetically engineered proteins, and to
control these proteins' activity levels in
a precise manner by giving appropri-
ate doses of the drug.
Another potential future application
is in agricultural genetic engineering.
The method might make it possible,
for example, to create genetically
engineered plants in which the precise
timing of fruit ripening would be con-
trolled using a substance that increas-
es the activity of proteins responsible
for ripening.
Numerous proteins are used in
industrial processes, as biological sen-
sors and in other applications. The
possibility of controlling these appli-
cations, strengthening or slowing the
rate of protein activity in an immedi-
ate and reversible manner, can be of
great value. 7