NORTH-EAST specialist peptide manufacturer Cambridge Research Biochemicals (CRB) has teamed up with Durham University to carry out important health research.

Billingham-based CRB, which makes peptides and antibodies for use in pharmaceutical and biotechnology research across the world, is carrying out the work with Durham University.

A fellowship has been created which means Dr Ehmke Pohl, a structural biologist in the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham, and Dr Steven Cobb (Department of Chemistry), a specialist in peptide synthesis to the commercial partner CRB, will be able to investigate synthetic ways of producing the human chemokines family of proteins.

Chemokines are important in medicine because they play a key role in the human immune response, which makes them useful for researchers in the field of heart disease, cancer and allergies.

The work is focused on a protein which plays a part in the furring up of the arteries with fatty substances such as cholesterol and can cause heart disease.

Emily Humphrys said that the Fellowship would benefit both CRB and the University.