Burning the Fat

By Lev Osherovich, Senior Writer

A team led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has identified sirtuin 3 as a critical regulator of fatty acid oxidation, a proc- ess by which the body burns fat.1 The findings have been licensed to the Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit of GlaxoSmithKline plc, which already has a discovery-stage program aimed at activating the enzyme to treat metabolic syndrome, obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, it could be challenging to pharmacologically activate the hard-to-reach mitochondrial protein in vivo.

Tags: SIRT3