A MORE unlikely basis for a drug than carbon monoxide is hard to imagine. But vascular biologist Roberto Motterlini is working on it. In the right dose, CO has many powerful health benefits, such as preventing damage to heart tissue after a heart attack. “It’s a totally new class of molecules, and a totally novel approach,” he claims. So when Motterlini realised there was nothing on the market for delivering the gas within the body, he set about inventing it.
Working with his boss Colin Green at Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research (NPIMR) in London, Motterlini spent a long…
