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---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Molecular 'radar' helps researchers look inside cells ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Reuter Information Service WASHINGTON (August 22, 1997 01:46 a.m. EDT) - Israeli scientists said on Thursday they had developed a kind of molecular "radar" that can be used to watch how enzymes work inside cells. They said their new tool would not only help them understand how cells work, but could lead to new approaches to treating diseases such as cancer in which cell signals go wrong. "Previously, in studying message transmission inside the cells of a developing organism, we scientists were rather like people at an airport watching the planes take off and land," said Ben-Zion Shilo, head of the Weizmann Institute of Science's molecular genetics department. "Our new method gives us the ability equivalent to that of an air traffic controller who looks at the dots on the radar screen and can thus follow the movements of each plane step by step." Shilo's team used phosphate atoms as the basis of their new tool. Phosphate atoms help carry signals inside a cell in a process known as phosphorylation -- a kind of chain reaction. Reporting in the journal Science, they said they developed antibodies that react only to molecules that are undergoing this process in a certain way. They used the antibodies to watch signals set off by a growth factor in fruit fly cells. The antibodies are easy to watch, they said. "We can suddenly look at processes in a cell or embryo as they are happening and don't have to infer things from the consequences any more," Shilo said in a statement. <http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/health/082297/health40_10184_noframes.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---