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novapsycheBiotech goal: sweet-smelling blue roses
At Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, scientists studying how drugs metabolize in the liver stumbled across a human protein that may hold the key to creating the world's first-known blue rose.
Elizabeth Gillam, working in the lab of biochemist F. Peter Guengerich, amazed her boss one day with a flask full of bacteria that she turned blue with an enzyme taken from a patient's liver. They're now trying to insert into roses the human gene that produces that blue enzyme.
"I would have called you crazy five years ago if you told me I would be pursuing a blue rose," said Guengerich, who spends most of his time researching disease-fighting drugs. "It's not something we set out to do."
Guengerich marvels that so many gardening enthusiasts lust after the blue rose, the pursuit of which has reached near-mythical proportions.
"For some reason this is the holy grail for this type of work," Guengerich said. "We could try to create blue cotton, blue anything really."
At Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, scientists studying how drugs metabolize in the liver stumbled across a human protein that may hold the key to creating the world's first-known blue rose.
Elizabeth Gillam, working in the lab of biochemist F. Peter Guengerich, amazed her boss one day with a flask full of bacteria that she turned blue with an enzyme taken from a patient's liver. They're now trying to insert into roses the human gene that produces that blue enzyme.
"I would have called you crazy five years ago if you told me I would be pursuing a blue rose," said Guengerich, who spends most of his time researching disease-fighting drugs. "It's not something we set out to do."
Guengerich marvels that so many gardening enthusiasts lust after the blue rose, the pursuit of which has reached near-mythical proportions.
"For some reason this is the holy grail for this type of work," Guengerich said. "We could try to create blue cotton, blue anything really."