Mar. 17, 2010 Research led by Wayne L. Backes, PhD, Professor of
Pharmacology and Associate Dean for Research at LSU Health
Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, has found that
drug metabolism depends not only upon which enzymes are present
in an individual, but also how they interact, and that can be
the difference in whether a drug is safely eliminated from the
body or is converted into a toxic or carcinogenic byproduct. The
paper will be published in the March 19, 2010 issue of the
Journal of Biological Chemistry. Dr. Backes and his LSUHSC
research colleagues -- J. Robert Reed, PhD, Pharmacology
Assistant Professor and Marilyn Eyer, Research Associate -- have
been studying an enzyme called Cytochrome P450 which is
responsible for the removal of the majority of drugs from the
body by chemically breaking them down into inactive substances
or metabolites. There are many different P450 enzymes capable of
degrading many different drugs. Because there are so many, there
is a high degree of variability