Thursday, Jan. 16, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
7
Penicillin creation made easier
By Barbara Shear Staff writer
After working two years on developing new methods to produce higher yields of a new kind of penicillin, a research team at the University of Kansas has completed their first step toward this simplification.
With a grant from the National Institute of Health, Gunda Georg, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry, and her research team have been working on a simplified way to produce large quantities of a new penicillin, thienamycin. Their research has helped others complete the process of simplification.
"We have completed Formal Total Synthesis," Georg said. This simplified process takes Georg's methods and works them down to a certain point where other people have completed the synthesis.
Tihenamycin, the most powerful of the new penicillins, is made in only small quantities. Georg said this was because the molecules in the penicillin were unstable and in large concentrations destroyed themselves.
Development of the new antibiotic began in 1976 by a major U.S. drug company.
The penicillin is currently on the
German market and is awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration before being placed on the American market.
Once approved, the penicillin will be used in hospitals, usually in emergency situations, Georg said.
Georg said the penicillin wouldn't be sold over the counter.
The process of synthesizing the penicillin begins with a chemical called 3-hydroxybutyric acid. Georg ferments it in sugar and baker's yeast to produce a small chemical structure that contains a chiral center that will be the basic building block of the finished product.
present, the enzymes responsible for keeping the bacterial wall in good repair attack the thienamycin molecule. The bacterial wall ruptures and the bacterium dies.
When thienamycin molecules are
The penicillin is not used as a preventive and is taken through an injection only. It is mainly used in fighting bacteria that is resistant to existing penicillins.
On Campus
Georg said 20 percent of the research teams that submitted proposals to the National Institute of Health were being financed by them. Georg is working with two chemists and one graduate student
"We are making very, very good progress," she said.
The movie "Teachers" will be shown at no charge at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Ecumenical Christian Ministries Center, 1204 Oread
Ave
The Navigator will sponsor a rally at 9 p.m. Friday at the Free Methodist Church, 302 W. 22nd St.
Terrace. An evening of prayer beginning at 11 p.m. will follow the rally.
■ The Latin American Solidarity will open its spring orientation
meeting with a film, "Guzapapa," at 6 p.m. today in the Ecumenical Christian Ministries Center, 1204 Oread Ave., $1.50.
But people warn you:
There's no FREE Lunch!
SUA
Picture Lending Library
has prints to rent
Decorate With Prints
Student Union Gallery
Jan. 16 and 17
12:30-4 p.m.
We offer free lunch because we want you to meet us and,we hope,keep on meeting with us.
Welcomes You Back
See Us in the Lawrence Coupon Book
841-8276 1017 ½ Mass.
9-5 Mon.-Sat. Evenings by Appt.
If You're Satisfied with the Ordinary
We're Not For You
Lutheran Campus Ministry
But people warn you:
1204 Oread 843-4948
Sunday Worship:10:30a.m.
FREE lunch after our 10:30 Worship Sunday. P.S. God's Grace is still free! really free!
So welcome to
$5J
$5
This coupon is good for
$5 off
March 7-14 Ski Trip
Bring coupon to sign up in SUA Office Kansas Union Call 864-3477 For Details
(Not Valid After 5 p.m. Jan.24,1986)
Woodruff Aud.
$5
"Weekend is the most powerful mystic movie since The Seventh Seal and Fires on the Plain and passages of Kurosawa... a great, original work... Weekend is Godard's vision of Hell, and it ranks with the visions of the greatest!"—Pauline Kael.
Jean-Luc Godard
WEEKEND
Weekend is the climactic film of Goddard's first, pre-revolutionary period and one of the key movies of the 1960s. Described by its director as "a film found on the junk-heap" and "a film lost in the cosmos," this frequently outrageous movie mixes pornography, slapstick, violence, political rhetoric, and virtuosic camerawork to present an epic vision of the last threes of consumer society as it destroys itself in auto wrecks and disappears into the stewpots of cannibalistic revolutionaries.
7:30
$1.50
TONIGHT!
FREE ROCK SHOWCASE
THIS WEEK FEATURING CANDYCREME
EVERY THUR. IN BOOMERS
THESE ARE FLASHY ROCK SHOW BANDS FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. A DIFFERENT BAND WILL PLAY EACH THUR.FOR THE PURPOSE OF BOOKING FRATERNITY & SORORITY PARTIES OUR REGULAR DANCE FORMAT WILL CONTINUE UNINTERRUPTED ON THE GAMMONS SIDE.
1. 25 DRINKS NO COVER