New Technology Bridges Gap Between New Genome Data and Years of Research

Since the initiation of the Human Genome Project, an explosion of data has sent the science world scurrying. There is a growing demand to customize genomic codes, which inventory the "ingredients for life,” but do not sufficiently clarify how those ingredients function.

A Rutgers University-Camden (NJ, USA) biochemist is addressing this knowledge gap through the creation of a database for quick "background checks” on all known enzyme functions. Because of a U.S. National Institute of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA) grant, Dr. Peter Palenchar, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Rutgers-Camden (NJ, USA; ), will categorize decades-worth of research on enzymes into a database, starting with those that bind to molecules that contain adenosine.

The US$200,000 grant will allow Dr. Palenchar to track and simplify what has been written about some 130 enzymes, including energy-creators adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP). "There are 50-plus years of good data on how enzymes function, but it's a tedious process to understand the specialized language used in enzymology papers. Question is: how do you access that information quickly?” stated Dr. Palenchar. His goal is to create a standard vocabulary to describe how enzymes function for the biomedical community, particularly those who work with anticancer drugs that target enzymes. Dr. Palenchar, with assistance from Rutgers-Camden undergraduate Jason Cargill and graduate student Salvador Gomez, will not only establish this new vocabulary for an accessible database, but also assess its effectiveness in determining the accuracy of genomic codes.

To do this, the Rutgers-Camden research team will compare the genomic sequencing in two organisms that contain "functionally important” amino acids: Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant commonly known as thale cress, and Plasmodium falciparum, the pathogen that causes malaria. "There could be good evidence that these enzymes are doing something different,” noted the biochemist, who has published his research in the past in the journal Genome Biology.

According to Mr. Gomez, who is searching primary publications through online databases such as PubMed and Academic Search Premier, this research is important. "This research has given me an opportunity to do meaningful work at a higher level,” he noted. "Knowing my work will be utilized by other scientists is a great feeling.”

Dr. Palenchar has been studying enzymes for the past 10 years. He teaches biochemistry at Rutgers-Camden.

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