AI predicts the work rate of enzymes

Bioinformatics: Publication in Nature Communications

Enzymes play a key role in cellular metabolic processes. To enable the quantitative assessment of these processes, researchers need to know the so-called “turnover number” (for short: kcat) of the enzymes. In the scientific journal Nature Communications, a team of bioinformaticians from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) now describes a tool for predicting this parameter for various enzymes using AI methods.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Significant Progress in Cancer Imaging

Groundbreaking method offers a fast and cost-effective way to observe abnormal metabolic processes live in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner / Production of biological contrast agents / Publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Implications of quantum metabolism and natural selection for the origin of cancer cells and tumor progression

Energy transfer in material solids is driven primarily by differences in intensive thermodynamic quantities such as pressure and temperature. The crucial observation  in quantum-theoretical models was the consideration of the heat capacity as associated with the vibrations of atoms in a crystalline solid. However, living organisms are essentially isothermal. Because of very little differences in temperature between different parts of a cell it is assumed that energy flow in living organisms is mediated by differences in the turnover time of various metabolic processes in the cell, which occur in cyclical fashion. It has been shown that the cycle time of these metabolic processes is related to the metabolic rate, that is the rate at which the organism transforms the free energy of whatever source into metabolic work, maintenance of constant temperature and structuraland functional organization of the cells. Quantum Metabolism exploits the methodology of the quantum theory of solids to provide a molecular level which derives new rules relating metabolic rate and body size.

Davies P, Lloyd A, Demetrius LA, Tuszynski, JA (2012) Implications of quantum metabolism and natural selection for the origin of cancer cells and tumor progression. Citation: AIP Advances 2, 011101 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.3697850

Einstein A (1920), Schallausbreitung in teilweise dissozieirten Gasen

Einstein A (1924) Quantentheorie des einatomigen, idealen Gases