News Release - Key enzyme for regulating heart attack damage found, Stanford scientists report


BY ERIN DIGITALE
September 11, 2008

STANFORD, Calif. — Marauding molecules cause the tissue damage that underlies heart attacks, sunburn, Alzheimer’s and hangovers. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine say they may have found ways to combat the carnage after discovering an important cog in the body’s molecular detoxification machinery.

The culprit molecules are oxygen byproducts called free radicals. These highly unstable molecules start chain reactions of cellular damage—an escalating storm that ravages healthy tissue.

“We’ve found a totally new pathway for reducing the damage caused by free radicals, such as the damage that happens during a heart attack,” said Daria Mochly-Rosen, PhD, professor of chemical and systems biology and the senior author of a study reporting the new findings. The research appears in the Sept. 12 issue of Science.
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