Showing papers in "Current Opinion in Biotechnology in 2002"

TL;DR: This work has shown how the emission wavelength of quantum-dot nanocrystals can be continuously tuned by changing the particle size, and a single light source can be used for simultaneous excitation of all different-sized dots.

TL;DR: The development of enzymes with improved properties for established technical applications and in the production of new enzymes tailor-made for entirely new areas of application where enzymes have not previously been used are studied.

TL;DR: Novel biotechnological applications have been successfully established using lipases for the synthesis of biopolymers and biodiesel, the production of enantiopure pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and flavour compounds.

TL;DR: Combining microbial ecology, molecular techniques, analytical chemistry, sensory analysis and mathematical modelling allows us to characterise the specific spoilage organisms and to develop methods to determine, predict and extend the shelf life of products.

TL;DR: An analysis of 134 industrial biotransformations reveals that hydrolases and redox biocatalysts are the most prominent categories and the implications of this for future research and development onBiocatalysis are discussed.

TL;DR: The Pichia pastoris expression system offers economy, ease of manipulation, the ability to perform complex post-translational modifications, and high expression levels.

TL;DR: The hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms produce biosurfactants that increase the surface area of hydrophobic water-insoluble substrates and increase their bioavailability, thereby enhancing the growth of bacteria and the rate of bioremediation.

TL;DR: Ionic liquids offer new possibilities for the application of solvent engineering to biocatalytic reactions, and in some cases, remarkable results with respect to yield, (enantio)selectivity or enzyme stability were observed.

TL;DR: Unexpectedly, previously unrecognised, yet uncultured bacteria were demonstrated to catalyse nitrogen and phosphorous removal in activated-sludge and biofilm reactors.

TL;DR: Intracellular delivery of macromolecules remains problematic because of the bioavailability restriction imposed by the cell membrane, but recent studies on protein transduction domains have circumvented this barrier, and have resulted in the delivery of peptides, full-length proteins, iron beads, liposomes, and radioactive isotopes into cells in culture and animal models in vivo.

TL;DR: Psychrophilic (cold-adapted) organisms and their products have potential applications in a broad range of industrial, agricultural and medical processes; however, recent advances, particularly with cold-active enzymes, herald rapid growth for this burgeoning field.

TL;DR: The identification of the different sodium transporters (in particular vacuolar and plasma membrane Na(+)/H(+) antiporters) that could provide the needed ion homeostasis during salt stress opens the possibility of engineering crop plants with improved salt tolerance.

TL;DR: Non-viral gene delivery systems have the potential to create viable pharmaceuticals from nucleic acids that contain lipids and/or cationic polymers but several barriers must be overcome in manufacturing, formulation and stability.

TL;DR: In recent years, the number of recombinant proteins used for therapeutic applications has increased dramatically, and these demands have driven the development of a variety of improvements in protein expression technology, particularly involving mammalian and microbial culture systems.

TL;DR: Recent achievements have been made in the metabolic engineering of plant secondary metabolism using genes encoding biosynthetic enzymes or genes encoding regulatory proteins, thereby increasing the flux towards the desired secondary metabolites.

TL;DR: Improved molecular techniques for analysis of the gut microflora, new manufacturing biotechnologies, and increased understanding of the metabolism of oligosaccharides by probiotics are facilitating development, leading to a more targeted development of functional food ingredients.

TL;DR: RNA and DNA molecules can be engineered to function as molecular switches that trigger catalytic events when a specific target molecule becomes bound, making possible the creation of new types of biosensor devices and genetic control elements.

TL;DR: Rapid technological developments are now stimulating the chemistry and pharma industries to embrace enzyme technology, a trend strengthened by concerns regarding health, energy, raw materials, and the environment.

TL;DR: Common themes are beginning to emerge, providing promise for the development of sophisticated control strategies in surface-attached microbial communities in a wide variety of organisms.

TL;DR: The development of monoclonal antibodies has created a new generation of pharmaceuticals with the desired pharmacokinetics and biodistribution properties as discussed by the authors, including high antigen affinity and specificity, effective tumor penetration, circulation properties that allow high tumor uptake with acceptable doses to the normal tissues, and fast clearance allowing low background.

TL;DR: Strategies of directly cloning 'environmental DNA' comprising the genetic blueprints of entire microbial consortia provide molecular sequence space that along with ingenious in vitro evolution technologies will act synergistically to bring a maximum of available sequence-space into biocatalytic application.

TL;DR: An artificial neural network that identifies arbitrary nonlinear multiparametric discriminant functions directly from experimental data for applications where a mechanistic description of the dependency between dependent and independent variables is either unknown or very complex.

TL;DR: It is shown that studies of conformational changes in proteins at a single molecule level and in the native in vivo context of a living cell are now possible.

TL;DR: A partial survey of exploratory activities points to future applications of enzymes in the European chemical industry, which will bring new products and technologies and, in some cases, replace traditional syntheses.

TL;DR: Adapting microarray hybridization for use in environmental studies faces several challenges associated with specificity, sensitivity and quantitation.

TL;DR: In the future, nutritional sciences is likely to see new screening tools for the selection of bioactive nutrients, new biomarkers for the in vivo efficacy of nutrients, and better insight into the influence of genetic polymorphisms on nutrient metabolism.

TL;DR: Recent research developments focus on the fine-tuning of expression systems and the detailed characterisation of recombinant products, including the implications of plant-specific glycosylation.

TL;DR: An improved mechanistic understanding of enzyme function and activation in dehydrated environments has led to the development of a broad array of techniques for generating active, stable, and enantioselective and regioselectives tailored enzymes for synthetically relevant transformations.

TL;DR: Novel transgenic mouse strains provide a powerful technology platform for creating fully human monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics; ten such antibodies have entered clinical trials since 1998 and more are in preclinical testing.

TL;DR: Ian’s main area of research is the relationship between dietary components and cancer risk, in particular the influence of probiotics and prebiotics on colorectal cancer and the role of phytoestrogens in the prevention of breast and prostate cancers.