Word: khorana
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...other hand, the research by the Harvard team basically adds to reseaach done by a number of other teams at the National Institute of Health and several universities. Bacterial genes were chemically synthesized in 1973 by an MIT team led by Har Gobind Khorana; Nobel Prize Winners Dr. Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin and David Baltimore at MIT first discovered the enzyme--reverse transcriptase--that was a keystone in the Harvard research; and three research groups--including one led by Baltimore--simultaneously produced one of DNA's two strands...
...real significance of the work done by the Harvard team will probably prove to be the new lab techniques it developed in order to complete the synthesizing process for a mammalian gene. While Khorana was able to synthesize chemically a bacteria gene, the extremely complicated structure of mammalian genes make the process he used too difficult and lengthy for building mammalian genes...
...Gobind Khorana, 51, a 1968 Nobel...
...model, Khorana picked a relatively simple gene from the common yeast cell; its nucleotide sequence is only 77 steps long. But those 77 steps made the building process immensely complex. Adding one lab-made nucleotide at a time in complex chemical processes, Khorana's team patiently assembled small, single-stranded segments of the 77-step chain. After each step forward, the scientists had to backtrack: every new combination had to be unraveled in order to check that the nucleotides were still in the right sequence and had not been damaged by chemical side effects. When enough strands had been...
...ingratiatingly shy and modest man. Khorana emphasizes that his man-made gene is relatively crude. It lacks, for example, the coded signals that start and stop the production of protein. But his work has brought closer the day when artificially created genes may be used to replace defective ones in order to cure such genetic diseases as hemophilia and muscular dystrophy. Another possibility, Khorana concedes, is "the genetic planning of individuals-tailoring people to fit patterns, turning out athletes or intellectuals." But, he adds, "it is a very very long time...