Long road to building a better painkiller gets boost at U of S synchrotron
The dream is a big one: making opioid painkillers that are less addictive and adapting opioids into other medicines such as antibiotics and cancer treatments.
That dream is still years away from becoming reality. But it's one important step closer after groundbreaking research at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan.
Dr. Ken Ng, a professor at the University of Windsor and adjunct professor at the University of Calgary, and Sam Carr, a PhD student from the University of Calgary, worked with Peter Facchini’s group at the University of Calgary to better understand how natural opiates are produced.
They focused on the enzyme codeinone reductase (COR), which is used in the last stage of opiate production in poppies. The researchers used the CMCF beamline to map out a 3D structure of COR.
They found that part of its structure is unique compared to related enzymes. Armed with this blueprint, they can start to modify that structure to change the enzyme's properties.
However, enzyme engineering is hard to do, Carr said.
"We have a three-dimensional structure and we can start looking at where things are, and try to change things and what happens is that we change things and it doesn't really do what we thought it would. So it's a very iterative process."
Still, knowing COR's structure has already allowed the team to make a small, successful change to how it works.
"I think it's misleading if people expect, 'oh, we'll have a better form of morphine in five years' or something. That's almost guaranteed not to happen," Ng said.
"But by understanding these things, at least you have a start towards changing these things in ways that you can't really do in a poppy or natural plants that make these kinds of drugs."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.