This week we had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Werner Reutter. From Charite Hospital in Berlin @ the Institute of biochemistry and molecular biology, Benjamin Franklin campus.
Charite Hospital is one of the oldest hospitals in Germany and has a motto: Research, Teaching, Healing, and Helping. The new Charité hospital (circa 2003) is comprised of medical faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin and the medical faculty of the Free University Berlin, which was founded against the communistic system at Humboldt at that time by medical students in 1948 with the decisive support of the USA, especially Henry Ford II.
The biochemist Werner Reutter, MD, is an expert in glycomics, especially in sialic acid research. His main contributions to glycomics are -the discovery of the galactosamine hepatitis, together with D. Keppler, R. Lesch and K. Decker(1968) -purification and characterization of the key enzyme of sialic acid biosynthesis, the UDP-GlcNAc 2-epimerase/N-acetylmannosamine kinase (=GNE), the first detected bifunctional enzyme in glycobiology barring epimerase and kinase activity in its terameric state; GNE's point mutants are related to sialuria and the HIBM (=hereditary inclusion body myopathy), GNE regulates sialylation of membrane glycoproteins. Successful search of specific inhibitors of GNE. -Introduction of the biochemical engineering of the N-acetyl side chain of sialic acid (1981 and 1992) as a new and unexpected means to modify biochemically this peripheral sugar, e.g. by feeding cells or animals by N-propionylmannosamine (or others), a slightly modified substrate of sialic acid biosynthesis, which is converted to the unphysiological N-propionyl (and not to the physiological N-acetyl) sialic acid, which is an appropriate substrate for membrane glycoprotein biosynthesis. In this membrane localization the new sailic acid shows many new unexpected biological functions, e.g. inhibition of influenza A virus uptake, stimulation of neurite growth, stimulation of lymphocyte functions, which could be of biomedical importance -Development of new glycosidated phospholipids, e.g. Ino-2-PAF, as inhibitors of cell growth -use of bulks of galactose as a nutrient to interfere with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, e.g. hepatic encephalopathia
Some of Dr Reutter`s research is based on understanding the modification of cell surface molecules with sialic acid. Including how sialic acid metabolism is regulates gene expression. Its use in neurite growth, cancer research and many other applications. His laboratory is working with the idea of how signals are forwarded from cell to cell, and what molecular components play roles within that reaction.
Be sure to click on all the links including these research previews.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/284/5418/1372
http://dlib.lib.cas.cz/2308/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v853h3n66828451k/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19089315
Click here for a link to his webpage
Here is a link to his research page
http://www.charite.de/en/
http://www.charite.de/en/charite/locations/campus_benjamin_franklin_cbf/
