A new discovery from researchers at Northeastern University has uncovered previously unknown aspects of plant evolution, with major implications for creating new lifesaving drugs.
The researchers’ breakthrough traced, for the first time, the genetic and molecular path a particular plant, Canadian moonseed, took to be able to perform a chemical reaction that was previously thought impossible for a plant to do naturally: adding a chlorine atom to a molecule. The findings, recently published in Science Advances, point to opportunities for creating new, more efficient methods of developing pharmaceuticals.
The work provides closure on “a molecular detective story millions of years in the making,” says Jing-Ke Weng, a professor of chemistry, chemical biology and bioengineering at Northeastern whose Weng Lab led this project.
“To understand what has happened in the past that leads to the current state of things in terms of cultures, countries and many other things, we rely on archaeology,” Weng says. “The work we took here is essentially molecular archaeology.”
Read more at Northeastern Global News
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