Researchers find pathway and enzyme unique to tularemia organism
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 18:14
in Biology & Nature
Researchers are closer to developing therapies to combat the deadly tularemia infection, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' online Early Edition. Karl Klose, director of the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (STCEID) at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), says his lab collaborated with researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Thomas Jefferson University in a study that discovered that Francisella tularensis makes an essential metabolic molecule, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), using a different process and different enzyme from all other living organisms.