  La Jolla, CA, September 7, 2001 -- A team of scientists lead
by Professor Richard Lerner, Ph.D., President of The Scripps
Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered that antibodies have a
novel catalytic abilityunique among proteinswhich could possibly
mean they do more to protect our bodies than scientists had
previously thought.  In the current issue of the journal
Science, the team demonstrates that antibodies can catalyze the
formation of hydrogen peroxide from singlet oxygen.  All
antibodies have the ability to do this," says Professors Paul
Wentworth Jr., Ph.D. and Kim Janda, Ph.D., two of the lead
authors on the paper. "Singlet oxygen is not something you want
around."  Singlet oxygen is an electronically excited form of
oxygen that forms spontaneously during normal metabolic
processes or when oxygen is subjected to visible or ultraviolet
light in the presence of a sensitizer. Singlet oxygen is highly
reactive, making it potentially dangerous to an organism.
Throughout evolution, animals have develope