Kim Janda and his team also use catalytic antibodies to form carbon-carbon bonds and have developed new sensors for molecules derived from chemical weapons. Nerve gas agents can now be detected by monoclonal antibodies. M.G. Finn also evolves antibodies with specifically engineered catalytic sites for metal complexes. Ehud Keinan and his group have succeeded in assembling an antibody with a metalloporphyrin catalytic site. Steve Mayfield's research centers on the production of antibodies in microalgae.
Proteins produced in plant systems are safe and offer the advantages of large-scale production.
Such plant systems lead to valuable human therapeutic agents and other proteins that were prohibitively expensive only a decade ago. Highlights of the accomplishments in chemistry last year include the synthesis of the anticancer epothilones and eleutherobins by K.C. Nicolaou, chairman of the Chemistry Department. These molecules were made individually first and then as combinatorial libraries. For this research, they used organic synthesis to produce structural modifications extending even to mirror-image isomers of the natural products. They also continue to use solution-phase combinatorial chemistry.