European project to develop protease inhibitors
A new EU-funded project will seek to develop protease inhibitors with the aim of controlling proteases in cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Proteases are enzymes (proteins), that act as catalysts for other proteins when regulating many of the biological processes involved in blood coagulation, food processing, extracellular matrix renewal and other essential functions. The ultimate goal of the CAMP (Chemical Genomics by Activity Monitoring of Proteases) project is to design and develop drugs to control proteases involved in inflammations, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and neurodegeneration. Without the regulation of protease activity, these and other conditions can occur. The team is working to develop substrates with fluorescent molecules. These will be attached to proteases so that they can be monitored in tissue culture and live animals in both healthy and pathological situations. The project team will thus be able to obtain information on the structure, activity and evolution of the proteases and their inhibitors (molecules that alter their functions). The researchers hope that doing this will enable them to establish where to find the proteases that the drugs need to act on. They have already started work on developing substrates with fluorescent molecules that will be attached to the proteases. The project is being conducted by a consortium of research groups from different universities, small and medium-sized enterprises, and a large pharmaceutical company under the coordination of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. CAMP is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP). It is funded under the EU Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and will run for three years.