Originally published October 12 2005
ChemGenex funds new study of inflammation
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Funded by ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals, a consortium of scientists led by John Blangero at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio discovered an unknown gene, now named SEPS1 (Selenoprotein S), which could help to solidify the link between diabetes and obesity.
Yesterday, a group of researchers in the U.S. and Australia announced it had discovered a human gene that regulates inflammation--the first gene of its kind.
The discovery has implications for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer's, because inflammation is understood to play a critical role in all of them.
The findings, published in the Oct. 9 online edition of Nature Genetics, were funded by ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: CXSP - news - people), a biotech firm with operations in Menlo Park, Calif.
ChemGenex initially identified the gene in the desert sand rat, a species that, like humans, has certain individuals with a greater propensity than others for obesity and diabetes, as well as the inflammation associated with those conditions.
In their native environment, the desert around the Red Sea, the sand rats scrounge for food mainly at night.
Half of those became diabetic, and half of the diabetic population became severely diabetic--proportions that mirror those in the human population, says Greg Collier, chief executive of ChemGenex.
The ChemGenex scientists believed there was a genetic explanation for why only some sand rats became obese or diabetic, and determined that the affected sand rats exhibited a different pattern of a previously undiscovered gene, now called SEPS1 (Selenoprotein S).
They found that SEPS1 is a type of "garbage truck" that helps clear cells of misfolded, or abnormally shaped, proteins that build up when cells are placed under stress.
One of the drugs, ceflatonin, is for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a rare cancer of the blood that is currently being treated with Gleevec, a drug made by Novartis (nyse: NVS - news - people).
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