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Lifesaving Bioteque at the University of Stavanger

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21.11.2007

By using revolutionary methods the Plastid Company will produce proteins. Professor Simon Geir Møller heads the company which is the first bioteque company at the University of Stavanger.

The approach for the Plastid Company is to produce great quantities of plastids or mini cells in the plants. There are millions of these cells in each plant and they will function as efficient bio factories. The proteins will be used by research laboratories, the health service, the feed and fish industries and the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition to standard proteins Plastid will also design and produce new proteins and enzymes in demand by the market.

The production of proteins in plastids has until now been difficult, partly because it is a complicated process to put a gene into a plastid and then make a plant grow from this single plant cell.

By applying our procedures we get the right plant after two to three months. The aim is to shorten the process to one to two months. When we have the plant which produces the protein demanded by the customer, we can simply expand – we will just grow more plants. Møller says.

The Plastid Company can develop products adapted to all illnesses caused by defective proteins. A particularly interesting area is the so-called kinases, proteins which are active in transmission of signals in our body. Defect kinases cause around 400 different serious illnesses from cancer to neurological ailments.

One example is stomach cancer where a special kinase is always switched on. Stomach cancer patients therefore need inhibitors of this kinase. They must be developed continuously since our patients become resistant to inhibitors after a while, Møller explains.

We want to produce kinases in our system which may be used for developing new inhibitors for these patients. We have already managed to produce a kinase, even though this is a process in which success is not easily achieved. It shows that we are able to manage this within our patented system. There is a large market for new proteins in the industry, but the infrastructure has so far been expensive. Plastid's system is robust and the production can easily be increased or reduced, Møller says.

Silje Stangeland | Source: alphagalileo
Further information: www.uis.no/news/article7387-50.html

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