Pharmacyclics other research news

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company and university collaborators described new technology for antisense compounds in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Pharmacyclics described site-specific cutting of RNA with a ribozyme analog made of a porphyrin-like molecule carrying the metal europium. Porphyrins, which occur naturally and can chelate metals - the iron-carrying capability of hemoglobin is an example - have been modified by the company to carry larger metal molecules.

An antisense strand to an RNA of multiple drug resistance genes was conjugated to a europium complex of the synthetic porphyrin texaphyrin. The ribozyme analog bound to the desired RNA and cleaved it at a specfic site, mimicking the natural action of ribozymes. ...