Lights, Camera, Enzymes!: A Conversation with Chemist and Protein Expert Brian Shoichet

By Jeff Miller

Enzymes really need to hire a publicist. Genes had been hogging the headlines for years until proteins with a capital “P” pushed them aside. Now you can read about big proteins everywhere. But enzymes – those cutups in the protein classroom – have never had their day in the sun. Maybe we can blame it on those biotech companies with the odd monikers. Enzymes sound like a name nobody liked.

That not’s true of pharmaceutical chemist Brian Shoichet, PhD, who last year pushed enzymes into the spotlight at last. His big discovery? Figuring out a way to determine what an enzyme does by how it is shaped.

The model enzyme he used, TM0936, lives in boiling water at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Original software created in Shoichet’s School of Pharmacy lab, which is designed to find patterns in the metabolites, or byproducts, of TM0936 – coupled with computers that are at least 1,000 times faster than those used just two decades ago – soon detected a pattern.

Brian Shoichet

A little more sleuthing and a lot of chemistry later, Shoichet had the proof he needed. TM0936, it seems, has a special affinity for adenosine, a messenger molecule in all forms of life.

What does this mean to us? Well, we don’t live near a volcanic ocean vent. So, on the surface, the discovery seems interesting, but hardly a wavemaker.

Better think again. The technological approach developed in Shoichet’s lab could save pharmaceutical companies huge amounts of time and money now spent in following false drug leads suggested by less sophisticated methods. And that approach is a direct benefit to human health.

Apart from that, Shoichet explains with a smile, many theoretical discoveries turn out to have very practical applications – yet another reminder that the best science is often the most unscripted kind.

Hear the conversation.

(Podcast transcript available in approximately two weeks)