The Genius Who Never Existed and other Short Stories from Science, History and Philosophy by Saso Dolenc

Author:Saso Dolenc [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
Publisher: Kvarkadabra
Published: 2014-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

The rocky road to finding a cure for cholesterol

In the cafeteria at the Japanese University Tohoku, a bell rang every evening at about eight o'clock, and whoever came running quickly enough received the day's leftovers. Many poor students lived on these free evening meals during their study years. Among them was a future biochemist Akira Endo, who like the others often waited for the cafeteria bell and ran to get some of the free food. Even though he later spent many years conducting research at Sankyo, a pharmaceutical company, working hard to discover one of the most profitable medicines in the entire pharmaceutical industry, he received no additional compensation for his success beyond his usual pay and pension.

After concluding his studies, Endo got a job at Sankyo where his initial research work consisted of isolating certain constituent parts or products of yeast organisms that would prove commercially viable. During that time in Japan, every student had to complete at least five years’ work as a researcher in a relevant industry before they could obtain their doctorate. By the time he submitted his dissertation, Endo had already written no less than 15 research papers. His hard work and findings, which proved extremely lucrative for the company, brought Endo the chance to do post-doctoral training in the US in 1966. While in New York, he decided to switch his area of research to the biochemistry of lipids, commonly known as fat and cholesterol.

Good and bad cholesterol

Cholesterol is one of the key components of cellular membranes with important functions in the digestion of fat and the formation of hormones including oestrogen and testosterone. 93% of all body cholesterol is stored in our cells, with only 7% in the blood, and is ingested with food or produced by the liver.

Cholesterol is carried around with help from two sorts of molecule called lipoproteins. LDL (low density lipoproteins) carry cholesterol from the liver to other parts of the body, while HDL (high density lipoproteins) return any surplus of cholesterol from the arteries, where it can cause a number of problems, back to the liver. Of course, both types of lipoprotein are essential for maintaining normal bodily functions, yet in today’s vocabulary of heightened nutritional awareness, the HDL type has been labelled “good cholesterol” for its vein-cleansing properties, whereas LDL has been branded as “bad cholesterol”. If our blood contains an increased amount of LDL particles, they begin sticking to the walls of the arteries and cause problems by forming plaque, which in the worst-case scenarios cause our veins to clog, raising the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke.

Searching for a magical substance among thousands of samples

After returning to Japan, Akira Endo set his mind to finding a substance that would prevent the formation of new cholesterol in the body. It had been known since the 1960s that the enzyme HMGCR (HMG-CoA-reductase) was responsible for cholesterol regulation. Endo needed to find a substance that would inhibit this enzyme, which plays a central role in the production of cholesterol in the liver.

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