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Synthetic Crystalline Bovine Insulin
In 1965, Chinese scientists first synthesized crystalline bovine insulin (), which was the first functional crystalline protein being fully synthesized in the world. Research on synthesizing bovine insulin started on 1958. Members in the research group were from the Chemistry Department of Beijing University (), Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, CAS () and Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, CAS (). Insulin is a protein (peptide) consisting of two chain, A and B. Chain A consists of 21 amino acid residues while chain consists of 30 amino acid residues. The main function of insulin is to regulate the concentrate of sugar in blood. Type 1 diabetes are caused by dysfunction on the synthesis or secretory of insulin while injecting insulin can treat type 1 diabetes. In 1979, Wang Yinglai, the project's lead scientist, nominated Niu Jingyi Niu Jingyi (钮经义, 1920–1995) was a Chinese biochemist. He was born on December 26, 1920, in Xinghua, Jiangsu, Xinghua, Jiangsu. In ...
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Insulin
Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood into liver, fat and skeletal muscle cells. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen via glycogenesis or fats (triglycerides) via lipogenesis, or, in the case of the liver, into both. Glucose production and secretion by the liver is strongly inhibited by high concentrations of insulin in the blood. Circulating insulin also affects the synthesis of proteins in a wide variety of tissues. It is therefore an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules inside the cells. Low insulin levels in the blood have the opposite effect by promoting widespread catabolism, especially o ...
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Beijing University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter by the Guangxu Emperor. A successor of the older ''Guozijian'' Imperial College, the university's romanized name 'Peking' retains the older transliteration of 'Beijing' that has been superseded in most other contexts. Perennially ranked as one of the top academic institutions in China and the world; as of 2021 Peking University was ranked 16th globally and 1st in the Asia-Pacific & emerging countries by Times Higher Education, while as of 2022 it was ranked 12th globally and 1st in Asia by QS University Rankings. Throughout its history, Peking University has had an important role "at the center of major intellectual movements" in China. Abolished of its status as a royal institution after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the Xinhai Rev ...
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Chinese Academy Of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republican era and was formerly also known by that name. Collectively known as the "Two Academies (两院)" along with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, it functions as the national scientific think tank and academic governing body, providing advisory and appraisal services on issues stemming from the national economy, social development, and science and technology progress. It is headquartered in Xicheng District, Beijing, with branch institutes all over mainland China. It has also created hundreds of commercial enterprises, Lenovo being one of the most famous. CAS is the world's largest research organization. It had 60,000 researchers in 2018 and 114 institutes in 2016, and has been consistently ranked among the top research organizations ...
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Zou Chenglu
Zou Chenglu (; 17 May 1923 – 23 November 2006), better known as Chen-Lu Tsou, was a Chinese biochemist. He was a professor of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and later a professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He made important contributions to the synthesis of insulin, and was elected an academician of the CAS and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He won the TWAS Prize in Biology in 1992 for his pioneering study of enzyme inhibition kinetics, and was a six-time laureate of the State Natural Science Award (three times each for First Class and Second Class). His wife, physicist Li Lin, was also an academician of the CAS. Tsou was a strong advocate against academic fraud and pseudoscience, and led a public campaign against what he called "unhealthy practices" such as administrators' interference in scientific research. Early life and education Tsou was born on 17 May 1923 in Qingdao, Shandong province, wi ...
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Protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, responding to stimuli, providing structure to cells and organisms, and transporting molecules from one location to another. Proteins differ from one another primarily in their sequence of amino acids, which is dictated by the nucleotide sequence of their genes, and which usually results in protein folding into a specific 3D structure that determines its activity. A linear chain of amino acid residues is called a polypeptide. A protein contains at least one long polypeptide. Short polypeptides, containing less than 20–30 residues, are rarely considered to be proteins and are commonly called peptides. The individual amino acid residues are bonded together by peptide bonds and adjacent amino acid residues. The sequence of amino acid residue ...
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Peptide
Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Hence, peptides fall under the broad chemical classes of biological polymers and oligomers, alongside nucleic acids, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, and others. A polypeptide that contains more than approximately 50 amino acids is known as a protein. Proteins consist of one or more polypeptides arranged in a biologically functional way, often bound to ligands such as coenzymes and cofactors, or to another protein or other macromolecule such as DNA or RNA, or to complex macromolecular assemblies. Amino acids that have been incorporated into peptides are termed residues. A water molecule is released during formation of each amide bond.. All peptides except cyclic pep ...
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Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that originates when cells that make insulin (beta cells) are destroyed by the immune system. Insulin is a hormone required for the cells to use blood sugar for energy and it helps regulate glucose levels in the bloodstream. Before treatment this results in high blood sugar levels in the body. The common symptoms of this elevated blood sugar are frequent urination, increased thirst, increased hunger, weight loss, and other serious complications. Additional symptoms may include blurry vision, tiredness, and slow wound healing. Symptoms typically develop over a short period of time, often a matter of weeks. The cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown, but it is believed to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The underlying mechanism involves an autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Diabetes is diagnosed by testing the level of sugar or gl ...
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Wang Yinglai
Wang Yinglai (; 13 November 1907 – 5 May 2001), also known as Ying-Lai Wang, was a Chinese biochemist recognized as the first person to create synthetic insulin, a major scientific breakthrough that produced a biologically active compound from inorganic chemicals. He was one of the first group of scientists elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955. He founded the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry in 1958 and served as its director until his retirement in 1984. Early life and education Wang was born in Kinmen County (Quemoy), Fujian Province on 13 November 1907, in the final years of the Qing dynasty. He became an orphan at the age of six when his mother died. His father, an Overseas Chinese merchant, had died four years before. Despite the adverse circumstances, he pursued an education throughout the 1920s and 1930s, when China was mired in wars and turmoil. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry of the University of Nanking (Jinling University) and was ...
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Niu Jingyi
Niu Jingyi (钮经义, 1920–1995) was a Chinese biochemist. He was born on December 26, 1920, in Xinghua, Jiangsu, Xinghua, Jiangsu. In 1942, he graduated from the chemistry department of the National Southwestern Associated University. He served as an instructor of Tsinghua University from 1946 to 1948. In 1948, he went to United States to study biochemistry at the University of Texas, five years later commenced doctor degree. In 1956, he came back to China. His main research field is natural organic chemistry, containing the structure analysis and chemical synthesis of the protein polypeptides. In 1953 he finished his doctoral dissertation titled ''the microelement nutrition of the escherichia coli'' at US. In 1958, the Chinese institute of biochemistry started the research of artificial synthesis of the crystallized bovine insulin with Niu as one of the main principals. He designed the synthesis route, and the synthesis finally achieved success in 1965. This achievement won ...
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Helmut Zahn
Helmut Zahn (born June 13, 1916 in Erlangen; died November 14, 2004 in Aachen) was a German chemist who is often credited as the first to synthesize Insulin in 1963. His results synthesizing insulin were achieved almost simultaneously with that of Panayotis Katsoyannis at the University of Pittsburgh. His work was not honoured by the Nobel prize because in 1958 Frederick Sanger was the first who discovered the chemical structure of Insulin. Helmut Zahn studied chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and received his PhD in 1940. He habilitated at the University of Heidelberg and became director of the ''Deutsches Wollforschungsinstitut'' at the RWTH Aachen University in 1952. Decorations and awards * Honorary doctorates from the universities of University of Barcelona, Barcelona, University of Belfast, Belfast, University of Bradford, Bradford, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, University of Leeds, Leeds and University of Liège, Liège. * 1979: Austrian Decoration for ...
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Panayotis Katsoyannis
Panayotis G. Katsoyannis (January 7, 1924 - May 31, 2019) was an American biochemist who is often credited with being the first to synthesize insulin while leading a team at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1960s. His results synthesizing insulin were achieved almost simultaneously with that of Helmut Zahn at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. In his early years, while doing his PhD at the University of Athens Katsoyannis had been under the mentorship of Leonidas Zervas, who previously developed new synthetic methods for asymmetric cysteine-containing peptides as those in insulin. Katsoyannis was also noted for his studies on the synthesis of oxytocin and vasopressin. Following his time at the University of Pittsburgh, Katsoyannis served as the Head of the Division of Biochemistry at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and later was appointed as the founding Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1967 where he remained until the end ...
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Cell-free Protein Synthesis
Cell-free protein synthesis, also known as ''in vitro'' protein synthesis or CFPS, is the production of protein using biological machinery in a cell-free system, that is, without the use of living cells. The ''in vitro'' protein synthesis environment is not constrained by a cell wall or homeostasis conditions necessary to maintain cell viability. Thus, CFPS enables direct access and control of the translation environment which is advantageous for a number of applications including co-translational solubilisation of membrane proteins, optimisation of protein production, incorporation of non-natural amino acids, selective and site-specific labelling. Due to the open nature of the system, different expression conditions such as pH, redox potentials, temperatures, and chaperones can be screened. Since there is no need to maintain cell viability, toxic proteins can be produced. Introduction Common components of a cell-free reaction include a cell extract, an energy source, a supply of ...
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