Sulfurtransferases: Essential Enzymes for Life

Dr. Noriyuki Nagahara is an Associate Professor at the Isotope Research Institute of Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, Japan. He studies the chemical pathogenesis of lung cancer, along with chemical enzymology and molecular biology in the Department of Biochemistry at Nippon Medical School, and environmental medicine in the Department of Environmental Medicine, Nippon Medical School. He has investigated several enzymes, including purine nucleoside phosphorylase, xanthine oxidase, porphobilinogen synthase, thiosulfate sulfurtransferase (rhodanese), and 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (MST). In the course of his research, he found that MST was evolutionally related to rhodanese using protein engineering techniques. He also clarified the cellular and subcellular localization of MST, its enzyme kinetics, antioxidant properties, the characteristics of a cysteine with low redox potential in its catalytic site, and its mechanisms of polysulfide and hydrogen sulfide production. Dr. Nagahara is the author of over 70 original publications, and 6 books, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Scientific Reports.

Dr. Munishwar Nath Gupta earned his PhD from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and completed post-doctoral positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), University of Minnesota (USA), Lund University (Sweden), and University of Technology of Compiegne (France). He has taught chemistry, biochemistry, and biotechnology at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, between 1975-2016. He was awarded the National Science Talent fellowship (India) and Fellowships of National Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy. He has edited three books on thermostability of enzymes, non-aqueous enzymology and affinity-based separation methods (published by Springer/Birkhauser). He was an Associate Editor of Biocatalysis and Biotransformation (Taylor and Francis) and founding and former editor-in-chief of Sustainable Chemical Processes (Springer). He’s served on editorial boards of several national and international journals and acted as a consultant to Novozyme (Denmark), Dabur (India), and other international companies. His research interests include applied biocatalysis and interfaces of biochemistry with nanotechnology.