Cockroaches are morons in the morning, geniuses in the evening

The fact that scientists can teach cockroaches lessons is itself very interesting
K.S.Parthasarathy


Public release date: 27-Sep-2007


Contact: David F. Salisbury
david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu
615-343-6803
Vanderbilt University
Cockroaches are morons in the morning, geniuses in the evening


In its ability to learn, the cockroach is a moron in the morning and a genius in the evening.

Dramatic daily variations in the cockroach’s learning ability were discovered by a new study performed by Vanderbilt University biologists and published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is the first example of an insect whose ability to learn is controlled by its biological clock,” says Terry L. Page, the professor of biological sciences who directed the project. Undergraduate students Susan Decker and Shannon McConnaughey also participated in the study.

The few studies that have been done with mammals suggest their ability to learn also varies with the time of day. For example, a recent experiment with humans found that people’s ability to acquire new information is reduced when their biological clocks are disrupted, particularly at certain times of day. Similarly, several learning and memory studies with rodents have found that these processes are modulated by their circadian clocks. One study in rats associated jet lag with retrograde amnesia.

In the current study, the researchers taught individual cockroaches to associate peppermint – a scent that they normally find slightly distasteful – with sugar water, causing them to favor it over vanilla, a scent they find universally appealing.

The researchers trained individual cockroaches at different times in the 24-hour day/night cycle and then tested them to see how long they remembered the association. They found that the individuals trained during the evening retained the memory for several days. Those trained at night also had good retention. During the morning, however, when the cockroaches are least active, they were totally incapable of forming a new memory, although they could recall memories learned at other times.

“It is very surprising that the deficit in the morning is so profound,” says Page. “An interesting question is why the animal would not want to learn at that particular time of day. We have no idea.”

Most previous studies of circadian rhythm have focused on the visual system. “The advantage of eyes becoming more sensitive at night is so obvious that people haven’t looked much at other sensory systems,” says Page. “The fact that our study involves the olfactory system suggests that the circadian cycle could be influencing a number of senses beyond vision.”

In the study, the researchers used cockroaches of the species Leucophaea maderae. It doesn’t have a common name but it is commonly used in scientific experiments because it was used extensively in early physiological and endocrinological studies.

The discovery that the cockroach’s memory is so strongly modulated by its circadian clock opens up new opportunities to learn more about the molecular basis of the interaction between biological clocks and memory and learning in general.

Much of the new information about the molecular basis of memory and learning has come from the study of other invertebrates (animals without backbones) such as the sea slug (Apylsia) and the fruit fly (Drosophila).

“Studies like this suggest that time of day can have a profound impact, at least in certain situations. By studying the way the biological clock modulates learning and memory we may learn more about how these processes take place and what can influence them,” Page says.

###

[Note: A multimedia version of this story is available on Exploration, Vanderbilt University’s online research magazine, at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/stories/cockroach.html.]

Nature explains the cell-making process

Published online: 21 September 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070917-11
Why a person doesn't evolve in one lifetime
The body's complicated cell-making process may help to avoid cancer.

Philip Ball


What if your skin cells evolved every time they grew to replace dead skin?
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
It's not easy making a human. Getting from a fertilized egg to a full-grown adult involves a near-miracle of orchestration, with replicating cells acquiring specialized functions in just the right places at the right times. So you'd think that, having done the job once, our bodies would replace cells when required by the simplest means possible.

Oddly, they don't. Our tissues don't renew themselves by mere copying, with old skin cells dividing into new skin cells and so forth. Instead, they keep repeating the laborious process of starting each cell from scratch. Now scientists think they know why: it could be nature's way of making sure that we don't evolve as we grow older1.

Evolution is usually thought of as something that happens to whole organisms. But there's no fundamental reason why, for multicelled organisms, it shouldn't happen within a single organism too.

In a colony of single-celled bacteria, researchers can watch evolution in action. As the cells divide, mutants appear; and under stress, there is a selective pressure that favours some mutants over others, spreading advantageous genetic changes through the population.

In principle, precisely the same thing could occur throughout our bodies. Our cells are constantly being replaced in vast numbers: the human body typically contains about a hundred trillion cells, and many billions are shed and replaced every day.

If this happened simply by replication of the various specialized cells in each tissue, our tissues would evolve: mutations would arise, and some would spread. In particular, mutant cells that don't do their specialized job so well tend to replicate more quickly than non-mutants, and so gain a competitive advantage, freeloading off the others. In such a case, our wonderfully wrought bodies could grind to a halt.

Avoiding fate

While working at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, evolutionary biologist John Pepper of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his co-workers came up with a theory for how multicelled organisms avoid this fate. They say it explains why the epithelial tissue cells that line all parts of the body take such an apparently long-winded route to replication, rather than just copying themselves in their mature form.

To renew themselves, epithelial tissues retain a population of undifferentiated stem cells, like the unformed cells present in embryos, that have the ability to grow into different types of cells. When replacements are needed, some of these stem cells divide to make transient amplifying cells (TACs). The TACs then divide several times, and Pepper and his co-workers think that each division produces cells that are a little more developed into mature tissue cells.

All this costs a lot of metabolic energy, so it is not very efficient. But, the researchers say, it means that the functions of self-replication and proliferation are divided between separate groups of cells. The stem cells replicate, but only a little, and so there's not much chance for mutations to arise or for selective pressure to fix them in place. The proliferating TACS may mutate, but they aren't simply copying themselves, so there isn't any direct competition between the cells to create an evolutionary pressure. As a result, evolution can't get started.

Pepper and his colleagues have used computer modelling to show that this proposed mechanism can suppress evolution in a long-lived, multicelled organism.

Inside job

One case in which this scheme might not operate, they say, is in the immune system. Here evolution is beneficial, as it introduces adaptations that fight previously encountered invaders.

One drawback of this, however, is that it would be expected to make the immune system more prone to cancers. And that seems to be so: leukaemia and lymphoma are cancers associated with the immune system, and they seem to be more common in younger people than many other cancers, suggesting that the failure to suppress evolution allows its problems to show up rather quickly.

The researchers think that their hypothesis could provide new insights into cancers more generally. Whereas conventional wisdom has it that cancer is caused by some genetic mutation that leads cells to proliferate uncontrollably, this new picture implies that the problem would lie with TAC mutations that interfere with differentiation — so that a TAC cell ends up just copying itself instead of producing cells on the next rung up on the way to mature tissue cells.

Carlo Maley, Pepper's colleague at the Wistar Institute, a biomedical research centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says that if their picture is right, incipient cancer formation might be detected very early by looking for biomolecules in body fluids that signal disruption of cell differentiation, even before there are any physical signs of tumour growth.

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

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References

1. Pepper, J. W., et al. PLoS Comput. Biol. (in the press).

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Story from news@nature.com:
http://news.nature.com//news/2007/070917/070917-11.html

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Vitamin C essential for plant growth

In a study published in the on line edition of The Plant Journal,the scientists from the University of Exeter and Shimane University in Japan have proved for the first time that vitamin C is essential for plant growth.

K.S.Parthasarathy






Public release date: 23-Sep-2007


Contact: Sarah Hoyle
s.hoyle@exeter.ac.uk
44-013-922-62062
University of Exeter
Study shows vitamin C is essential for plant growth

Scientists from the University of Exeter and Shimane University in Japan have proved for the first time that vitamin C is essential for plant growth. This discovery could have implications for agriculture and for the production of vitamin C dietary supplements.


The study, which is now published online in The Plant Journal, describes the newly-identified enzyme, GDP-L-galactose phosphorylase, which produces vitamin C, or ascorbate, in plants. Vitamin C is already known to be an antioxidant, which helps plants deal with stresses from drought to ozone and UV radiation, but until now it was not known that plants could not grow without it.

Professor Nicholas Smirnoff of the University of Exeter, lead author on the paper said: ‘Vitamin C is the most abundant antioxidant in plants and yet its functions are poorly understood. By discovering that the new enzyme is encoded by two genes, we were able to engineer vitamin C-free plants and found that they were unable to grow.’

The discovery also identifies the new enzyme as a key player in controlling vitamin C accumulation in response to light. Vitamin C provides protection against the harmful side-effects of light during photosynthesis, the process by which light energy is used to convert carbon dioxide into plant matter.

Professor Nicholas Smirnoff continued: ‘The discovery is exciting for me because it is the culmination of a long-term research programme on vitamin C in plants at the University of Exeter. It opens new opportunities to understand fundamental growth processes in plants and to improve plant resistance to stresses in a changing climate. In the longer term I hope that it will contribute to the efforts of plant scientists to improve crop yield in a sustainable manner.’

The findings could also pave the way for a new approach to producing vitamin C dietary supplements. In Britain we spend an estimated £20 million on vitamin C tablets each year, making this the most widely-used dietary supplement. Vitamin C is currently produced by mixed fermentation and chemical synthesis. The new enzyme provides the potential to engineer microbes to produce vitamin C by a simpler one-step process.

###

This research was funded by Bio-Technical Resources, Exeter University School of Biosciences, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) studentship.

Proposal defining kilogramme as a precise number of carbon atoms

Ronald F. Fox, a Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Theodore P. Hill – a Professor Emeritus in the Georgia Tech School of Mathematics proposed that the gram – 1/1000th of a kilogram – would henceforth be defined as the mass of exactly 18 x 14074481 (cubed) carbon-12 atoms.

The new definition needed a precise value for the Avagadro's number.In the fall of 2006 Fox and Hill submitted a paper to Physics Archives in which they proposed assigning a specific number to the constant – one of about 10 possible values within the experimental range. The authors pointed out that a precise Avogadro’s constant could also precisely redefine the measure of mass, the kilogram.The authors conceded that a precise Avogadro’s constant could also precisely redefine the measure of mass, the kilogram. The duo got inspired further when Associated Press (September 2007) noted that the mass of the official kilogramme cast 118 years is disappearing.The loss was 50 microgramme at the last check.

K.S.Parthasarathy




Public release date: 21-Sep-2007

Contact: John Toon
jtoon@gatech.edu
404-894-6986
Georgia Institute of Technology Research News
A better definition for the kilogram? Scientists propose a precise number of carbon atoms

How much is a kilogram?

It turns out that nobody can say for sure, at least not in a way that won’t change ever so slightly over time. The official kilogram – a cylinder cast 118 years ago from platinum and iridium and known as the International Prototype Kilogram or “Le Gran K” – has been losing mass, about 50 micrograms at last check. The change is occurring despite careful storage at a facility near Paris.

That’s not so good for a standard the world depends on to define mass.

Now, two U.S. professors – a physicist and mathematician – say it’s time to define the kilogram in a new and more elegant way that will be the same today, tomorrow and 118 years from now. They’ve launched a campaign aimed at redefining the kilogram as the mass of a very large – but precisely-specified – number of carbon-12 atoms.

“Our standard would eliminate the need for a physical artifact to define what a kilogram is,” said Ronald F. Fox, a Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “We want something that is logically very simple to understand.”

Their proposal is that the gram – 1/1000th of a kilogram – would henceforth be defined as the mass of exactly 18 x 14074481 (cubed) carbon-12 atoms.

The proposal, made by Fox and Theodore P. Hill – a Professor Emeritus in the Georgia Tech School of Mathematics – first assigns a specific value to Avogadro’s constant. Proposed in the 1800s by Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro, the constant represents the number of atoms or molecules in one mole of a pure material – for instance, the number of carbon-12 atoms in 12 grams of the element. However, Avogadro’s constant isn’t a specific number; it’s a range of values that can be determined experimentally, but not with enough precision to be a single number.

Spurred by Hill’s half-serious question about whether Avogadro’s constant was an even or odd number, in the fall of 2006 Fox and Hill submitted a paper to Physics Archives in which they proposed assigning a specific number to the constant – one of about 10 possible values within the experimental range. The authors pointed out that a precise Avogadro’s constant could also precisely redefine the measure of mass, the kilogram.

Their proposal drew attention from the editors of American Scientist, who asked for a longer article published in March 2007. The proposal has so far drawn five letters, including one from Paul J. Karol, chair of the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology and Symbols of the American Chemical Society. Karol added his endorsement to the proposal and suggested making the number divisible by 12 – which Fox and Hill did in an addendum by changing their number’s final digit from 8 to 6. So the new proposal for Avogadro’s constant became 84446886 (cubed), still within the range of accepted values.

Fast-forward to September 2007, when Fox read an Associated Press article on the CNN.com Web site about the mass disappearing from the International Prototype Kilogram. While the AP said the missing mass amounted to no more than “the weight of a fingerprint,” Fox argues that the amount could be significant in a world that is measuring time in ultra-sub-nanoseconds and length in ultra-sub-nanometers.

So Fox and Hill fired off another article to Physics Archive, this one proposing to redefine the gram as 1/12th the mass of a mole of carbon 12 – a mole long being defined as Avogrado’s number of atoms. They now hope to generate more interest in their idea for what may turn out to be a competition of standards proposals leading up to a 2011 meeting of the International Committee for Weights and Measures.

At least two other proposals for redefining the kilogram are under discussion. They include replacing the platinum-iridium cylinder with a sphere of pure silicon atoms, and using a device known as the “watt balance” to define the kilogram using electromagnetic energy. Both would offer an improvement over the existing standard – but not be as simple as what Fox and Hill have proposed, nor be exact, they say.

“Using a perfect numerical cube to define these constants yields the same level of significance – eight or nine digits – as in those integers that define the second and the speed of light,” Hill said. “A purely mathematical definition of the kilogram is experimentally neutral – researchers may then use any laboratory method they want to approximate exact masses.”

The kilogram is the last major standard defined by a physical artifact rather than a fundamental physical property. In 1983, for instance, the distance represented by a meter was redefined by how far light travels in 1/299,792,458 seconds – replacing a metal stick with two marks on it.

“We suspect that there will be some public debate about this issue,” Fox said. “We want scientists and science teachers and others to think about this problem because we think they can have an impact. Public discussion may play an important role in determining how one of the world’s basic physical constants is defined.”

How important is this issue to the world’s future technological development"

“When you make physical and chemical measurements, it’s important to have as high a precision as possible, and these standards really define the limits of precision,” Fox said. “The lack of an accurate standard leaves some inconsistency in how you state results. Having a unique standard could eliminate that.”

While the new definition would do away with the need for a physical representation of mass, Fox says people who want a physical artifact could still have one – though carbon can’t actually form a perfect cube with the right number of atoms. And building one might take some time.

“You could imagine having a lump of matter that actually had exactly the right number of atoms in it,” Fox noted. “If you could build it by some kind of self-assembly process – as opposed to building it atom-by-atom, which would take a few billion years – you could have new kilogram artifact made of carbon. But there’s really no need for that. Even if you built a perfect kilogram, it would immediately be inaccurate as soon as a single atom was sloughed off or absorbed.”

###

Technical Contacts: Ron Fox (770-433-8950); E-mail: (ron.fox@physics.gatech.edu) or Ted Hill (805-528-1331); E-mail: (hilltp66@charter.net).

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Antibiotics overprescribed by GPs

Many physicians appear to prescribe antibiotics without applying their mind.Van Duijn suggests that the results of his study should be used to update quality assurance programs and postgraduate courses, to emphasise the use of evidence-based prognostic criteria (e.g. chronic respiratory co-morbidity and old age) as an indication to prescribe antibiotics instead of single signs of inflammation or diagnostic labels.

K.S.Parthasarathy


Public release date: 19-Sep-2007


Contact: Charlotte Webber
press@biomedcentral.com
44-020-763-19980
BioMed Central
Antibiotics overprescribed by GPs

GPs are unnecessarily giving patients antibiotics for respiratory tract (RT) infections which would clear up on their own. Doctors tend to over-emphasise symptoms such as white spots in the throat, rather than looking at factors such as old age and co-morbidity, which would affect a patient's recovery, according to an article published in the online open access journal, BMC Family Practice.

Huug J. van Duijn and his team at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care from the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, looked at the practice records of 163 GPs from 85 Dutch practices over a 12 month period, and carried out a survey of the doctors' attitudes to prescribing antibiotics for RT infections. Diagnostic labelling (the tendency to encode RT episodes as infections rather than as symptoms) seemed to be an arbitrary process, often used to justify antibiotic prescribing. GPs may give out antibiotics unnecessarily to defend themselves against unforeseen complications, even if these are unlikely to materialize.

Although Dutch GPs prescribe relatively small antibiotic volumes and international colleagues often envy the quality assurance system in Dutch primary care with guidelines and peer review groups, Van Duijn suggests that the results of his study should be used to update quality assurance programs and postgraduate courses, to emphasise the use of evidence-based prognostic criteria (e.g. chronic respiratory co-morbidity and old age) as an indication to prescribe antibiotics instead of single signs of inflammation or diagnostic labels. "Even in the Netherlands there is an over-prescribing of antibiotics; about 50% of the antibiotic prescriptions for acute RT episodes are not in accordance with Dutch national guidelines," says van Duijn. "Considering costs, side-effects and the growing resistance to pathogens, it is important to rationalise antibiotic prescribing as much as possible."

###

Article
Diagnostic labelling and other GP characteristics as determinants of antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract episodes
Huug J. van Duijn, Marijke M. Kuyvenhoven, Hanneke M. Tiebosch, François G. Schellevis and Theo J.M. Verheij
BMC Family Practice (in press)

During the embargo, article available at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/5436403961360476_article.pdf?random=803709

After the embargo, article available from the journal website at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcfampract/

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BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing open access to peer-reviewed biological and medical research. This commitment is based on the view that immediate free access to research and the ability to freely archive and reuse published information is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.

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Academy releases emergency preparedness tools to offer shelter to millions of people

In spite of spending billions of dollars for drawing emergency preparedness plans, millions of people are at risk in USA.This is primarily because they do not account for critical problems people face when they actually try to protect themselves.The New York Academy of Medicine today released a report and tools—available at www.redefiningreadiness.

K.S.Parthasarathy


Public release date: 13-Sep-2007


Contact: Kathryn Cervino
kcervino@nyam.org
212-822-7285
New York Academy of Medicine
Academy releases emergency preparedness tools to enable millions more people to shelter in place
Online 'Redefining Readiness' tools harness the public's knowledge to address a fundamental flaw in planning
New academy tools help people prepare to shelter in place in the face of emergencies.


Although the nation has invested billions of dollars preparing to respond to emergencies, current plans leave millions of Americans at risk because they do not account for critical problems people face when they actually try to protect themselves. To fix this fundamental flaw, The New York Academy of Medicine is today releasing a report and tools—available at www.redefiningreadiness.net—that will enable households, work places, schools and early childhood/youth programs, and governments to anticipate and address problems they would face in emergencies. The tools are released during National Preparedness Month, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The report, With the Public’s Knowledge, We Can Make Sheltering in Place Possible, is based on two years’ work gathering the insights and experiences of nearly 2,000 people who live and work in four communities around the country. It identifies serious and unanticipated problems that currently make it neither feasible nor safe for many people to shelter in place. In conjunction with that report, the Academy is releasing four Shelter-in-Place Issue Sets (in both Spanish and English) to help members of households and organizations recognize and address their own vulnerabilities in these kinds of emergencies. Sheltering in place means staying inside whatever building you happen to be in—a workplace, school, store, or at home—for a period of a few hours to several days in order to stay safe, even if that requires you to be separated from other family members.

“Sheltering in place is a very important protective strategy in situations ranging from dirty bombs, toxic explosions, and chemical spills to much more common emergencies, like electrical blackouts and snowstorms,” said Roz D. Lasker, MD, Director of the Academy’s Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health and Division of Public Health, and lead author of the report.

The Academy’s main report documents that the emergency preparedness instructions being given to people and organizations do not address many important sheltering-in-place issues and sometimes make matters worse. Among the many gaps it uncovered:

* The public is being instructed to keep a supply of food and water in their homes, and most keep their medications there as well. But in a shelter-in-place emergency, many people will not be at home and will need to take shelter in other buildings, so their home-supply of food, water, or medicines won’t be accessible.

* The public is being told to identify places for family members to reunite in the event of an emergency. But those instructions don’t address situations in which it might be unsafe to go to such a place, such as if you would have to go through a danger zone to get there.

* While instructions describe how to identify and seal “safe rooms” in homes, schools, and other buildings, they pay little attention to assuring that the rooms can accommodate the number of people who are likely to need shelter, provide them with breathable air and tolerable temperatures, or give them safe access to water, food, lavatories, telephones, and medical supplies.

* Schools have been preparing for emergencies that affect the school directly, but children are also at risk if their parents and other guardians need to shelter in place because of an emergency and no other adult is available to pick the children up or be at home with them after school.

“The disconnect between current instructions and the problems people face in shelter-in-place emergencies isn’t surprising, since the public never had an opportunity to think about these situations in such detail before,” Lasker said.

The Academy has been harnessing the public’s knowledge about emergencies for several years now, with generous support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. In 2004, the Academy’s research study, Redefining Readiness: Terrorism Planning Through the Eyes of the Public, predicted that large numbers of people would suffer or die unnecessarily in emergencies, because planners were developing instructions for the public to follow without finding out whether it is actually possible, or safe, for all groups to do so. The prediction was proven to be correct during Hurricane Katrina, when many people could not follow instructions to evacuate due to barriers that had not been identified or addressed beforehand.

Over the past two years, the Academy has been working to prevent such needless death and suffering with teams in four Redefining Readiness demonstration sites in Carlsbad, NM; Chicago, IL; Savannah, GA; and southeast Oklahoma. In more than 200 small group discussions, almost 2,000 residents from diverse backgrounds explored the particular problems they would face trying to protect themselves in shelter-in-place emergencies, and the actions that they and other people and organizations could take. “Because of these efforts, we now know how to protect many more Americans in shelter-in-place emergencies than is currently possible,” said Lasker.

The insights generated in the small group discussions provided the basis for the Academy’s four Shelter-in-Place Issue Sets, which are tailored specifically to people in households, work places, schools and early childhood/youth programs, and governments. These practical tools—which consist of sets of questions rather than instructions—are designed to help users become aware of critical protection problems that their own household or organization can address and to develop workable solutions. The four issue sets are available on-line in Spanish as well as English.

Nan D. Hunter, JD, Director of the Center for Health, Science, and Public Policy at Brooklyn Law School and a co-author of the Academy’s new report, highlighted the importance of these tools for schools and work places. “The issue sets can help these organizations avoid liability by clarifying what they might reasonably be expected to do in shelter-in-place emergencies,” Hunter said. “Government agencies and private philanthropies can go a long way toward helping schools and work places realize those expectations – protecting employees, students, and customers in the process – by integrating the use of the issue sets in their current grant programs and by providing schools and work places with other incentives and supports.”

“This work is an important example of ways in which the Academy can play a role in assuring that individuals and communities affected by policies and programs have a great voice in creating them and thereby making them more effective” said Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, Academy President.

###

Founded in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit institution whose mission is to enhance the health of the public. Our research, education, community engagement, and evidence-based advocacy seek to improve the health of people living in cities, especially disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. The impact of these initiatives reaches into neighborhoods in New York City, across the country, and around the world. We work with community based organizations, academic institutions, corporations, the media, and government to catalyze and contribute to changes that promote health. Visit us online at www.nyam.org.

For more information about National Preparedness Month, an initiative each September of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security designed to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools, visit www.ready.gov.

Mobile phone use not associated with any adverse health effects, new study

Mobile phone use is increasing at a fast pace. Researchers are involved in intensive studies on the possible adverse health effects of its use.On September 12 as part of its 2007 Report, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme concluded that mobile phones have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects. The research programme included the largest and most robust studies of electrical hypersensitivity undertaken anywhere in the world.

K.S.Parthasarathy




Public release date: 12-Sep-2007

Contact: Science Media Center
44-020-767-02980
University of Nottingham
New report on mobile phone research published

Mobile phones have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects, according to the UK’s largest investigation into the possible health risks from mobile telephone technology.

The Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme published its conclusions on September 12 as part of its 2007 Report.

The six-year research programme, chaired by Professor Lawrie Challis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at The University of Nottingham, has found no association between short term mobile phone use and brain cancer. Studies on volunteers also showed no evidence that brain function was affected by mobile phone signals or the signals used by the emergency services (TETRA).

The MTHR programme management committee believes there is no need to support further work in this area.

The research programme also included the largest and most robust studies of electrical hypersensitivity undertaken anywhere in the world. These studies have found no evidence that the unpleasant symptoms experienced by sufferers are the result of exposure to signals from mobile phones or base stations.

The situation for longer-term exposure is less clear as studies have so far only included a limited number of participants who have used their phones for ten years or more. The committee recommends more research be conducted in this area.

The MTHR programme also investigated whether mobile phones might affect cells and tissue beyond simply heating them. The results so far show no evidence for this and the committee believes there is no need to support further work in this area.

Professor Lawrie Challis, Chairman of MTHR, said: “This is a very substantial report from a large research programme. The work reported today has all been published in respected peer-reviewed scientific or medical journals.

“The results are so far reassuring but there is still a need for more research, especially to check that no effects emerge from longer-term phone use from adults and from use by children.”

The research programme has also funded some basic measurements of radio signals from microcell and picocell base stations such as those found in airports, railway stations and shopping malls. These have shown that exposures are well below international guidelines.

Additional studies also confirmed that the use of a mobile phone while driving, whether hand-held or hands-free, causes impairment to performance comparable to that from other in-car distractions. There are however indications that the demand on cognitive resources from mobile phones may be greater.

###

Details of all the projects supported by the Programme are published on its web site: http://www.mthr.org.uk

Notes to editors:

The University of Nottingham is Britain's University of the Year (The Times Higher Awards 2006). It undertakes world-changing research, provides innovative teaching and a student experience of the highest quality. Ranked by Newsweek in the world's Top 75 universities, its academics have won two Nobel Prizes since 2003. The University is an international institution with campuses in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and China.

The MTHR Programme was set up in response to the research recommendations contained within the ‘Stewart Report’. The Programme received approximately £8.8 million of funding from a variety of government and industry sources.

To ensure the independence of the research, scientific management of the programme was entrusted to an independent Programme Management Committee made up of independent experts, mostly senior university academics. Funds contributed by the sponsors of the Programme are managed on behalf of the Committee by the Department of Health as Secretariat to the Programme.

The first Chairman of the Programme Management Committee was Sir William Stewart and he was succeeded in November 2002 by Professor Lawrie Challis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Nottingham and formerly Vice-chairman of the Stewart Committee.

The Programme was set up in 2001 and has supported 28 individual research projects, mostly undertaken in UK universities. Of these, 23 have now been completed and most have published results in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals (23 papers to date, with more expected in the near future). The Report 2007 summarises the state of knowledge at the time of the Stewart Report and the current state of knowledge, taking account of both research supported by the Programme and that carried out elsewhere. It also provides an indication of future research priorities.

More information is available from the Science Media Centre on +44 (0)20 7670 2980 smc@sciencemediacentre.org; or Media Relations Manager Tim Utton in the University’s Media and Public Relations Office on +44 (0)115 846 8092, tim.utton@nottingham.ac.uk. For non-news media enquires call Nigel Cridland – MTHR Scientific Co-ordinator +44 (0)1235 822666 MTHRDL@hpa.org.uk

Aspartame, the non-nutritive sweetener is safe, researchers say

An international expert panel from 10 universities and medical schools evaluated the safety of aspartame, a non nutritive sweetener for people of all ages and with a variety of health conditions and concluded that there is no evidence that it causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in human. The extensive review covered 500 reports, including toxicological, clinical and epidemiological studies dating from 1970’s pre-clinical work to the latest studies on the high-intensity sweetener, along with use levels and regulations data (Critical Reviews in Toxicology, September 2007).

In 1965, scientists accidentally discovered aspartame which is 200 times sweeter than sucrose.Aspartame has the same number of calories as sugar on a weight-to-weight basis; it can be added to food or pharmaceuticals at a fraction of what would be needed with sucrose to achieve the same sweetness, with far fewer calories.

K.S.Parthasarathy



Public release date: 11-Sep-2007

Contact: Ellen Ternes
eternes@umd.edu
301-405-4627
Kellen Communications
Aspartame is safe, study says

A sweeping review of research studies of aspartame says there is no evidence that the non-nutritive sweetener causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in humans

Looking at more than 500 reports, including toxicological, clinical and epidemiological studies dating from 1970’s preclinical work to the latest studies on the high-intensity sweetener, along with use levels and regulations data, an international expert panel from 10 universities and medical schools evaluated the safety of aspartame for people of all ages and with a variety of health conditions. Their study is published in the September issue of Critical Reviews in Toxicology.

“There have been continued questions in the media and on the internet about the safety of aspartame,” said panel member and University of Maryland food and nutrition professor Bernadene Magnuson. “Our study is a very comprehensive review of all of the research that’s been done on aspartame. Never before has a group with the breadth of experience of this panel looked at this question.”

Aspartame

A non-nutritive sweetener, aspartame is approximately 200 times sweeter than sucrose, the accepted standard for sweetness. Though aspartame has the same number of calories as sugar on a weight-to-weight basis, it can be added to food or pharmaceuticals at a fraction of what would be needed with sucrose to achieve the same sweetness, with far fewer calories.

Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965, and since then has become a popular sweetener in more than 6000 food and pharmaceutical products that range from soft drinks to ketchup.

Aspartame Consumption

The panel used the latest data – 2001-02 -- from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) to determine the most current levels of aspartame consumption.

“Even the very highest consumers of aspartame are well below the acceptable daily intake (ADI) and well below the amounts used in animal testing,” said Magnuson.

Evaluation Findings

The team reviewed studies that tested a number of health effects of varying levels of aspartame, including amounts that far exceed the acceptable daily intake, on animals and humans. In addition to healthy adults and children, studies also looked at effects on adults and children with diabetes, hyperactive and sugar-sensitive children, and people with Parkinson’s disease and depression.

The Expert Panel’s evaluation concluded the following:

Overall:

Aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption, which remain well below established ADI levels, even among high user sub-populations. No credible evidence was found that aspartame is carcinogenic, neurotoxic or has or any other adverse effects when consumed even at levels many times the established ADI levels.

Specifically:

* Based on results of several long term studies, aspartame does not have carcinogenic or cancer-promoting activity.

* Results of extensive investigation in studies that mimic human exposure do not show any evidence of neurological effects, such as memory and learning problems, of aspartame consumption.

* Overall the weight of the evidence indicates that aspartame has no effect on behavior, cognitive function, neural function or seizures in any of the groups studied.

* Aspartame has not been shown to have adverse effects on reproductive activity or lactation.

* Studies conclude that aspartame is safe for use by diabetics and may aid diabetics in adhering to a sugar-free diet.

* There is no evidence to support an association between aspartame consumption and obesity. On the contrary, when used in multidisciplinary weight control programs, aspartame may actually aid in long-term weight control.

* The studies provide no evidence to support an association between aspartame and brain or hematopoietic tumor development.

###

Expert Panel Members

In addition to Bernadene Magnuson, the Expert Panel included: George. A. Burdock, the Burdock Group; John Doull, University of Kansas Medical School; Robert M. Kroes, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Gary M Marsh, University of Pittsburgh; Michael W. Pariza, University of Wisconsin; Peter S. Spencer, Oregon Health and Science University; William J. Waddell, University of Louisville Medical School; Ronald Walker, University of Surrey, Great Britain; and Gary M.Williams, New York Medical School.

“Aspartame: A Safety Evaluation Based on Current Use Levels, Regulations and Toxicological and Epidemiological Studies” was funded by unrestricted support from Ajinomoto Company, Inc. The abstract may be accessed at http://informaworld.com/crtox. To talk with Bernadene Magnuson, contact Ellen Ternes, 301-405-4627, eternes@umd.edu.

HARDY rice: less water, more food

A team of scientists from USA, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Mexico and The Netherlands has produced a new type of rice that grows better and uses water more efficiently than other rice crops.They identified, characterized and made use of a gene called HARDY that improves key features of rice crop. They published the research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. HARDY contributes to more efficient water use in rice, a primary source of food for more than half of the world’s population.

K.S.Parthasarathy



Public release date: 10-Sep-2007

Contact: Barry Whyte
whyte@vbi.vt.edu
540-231-1767
Virginia Tech
HARDY rice: less water, more food

Blacksburg, Va. – An international team of scientists has produced a new type of rice that grows better and uses water more efficiently than other rice crops. Professor Andy Pereira at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) has been working with colleagues in India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Mexico and The Netherlands to identify, characterize and make use of a gene known as HARDY that improves key features of this important grain crop. The research, which was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that HARDY contributes to more efficient water use in rice, a primary source of food for more than half of the world’s population. *

Rice (Oryza sativa) is a water guzzler when compared to other crops. It typically uses up to three times more water than other food crops such as maize or wheat and consumes around 30 percent of the fresh water used for crops worldwide. In conditions where water is scarce, it is important to have crops that can efficiently generate biomass (plant tissue) using limited amounts of water. HARDY rice shows a significant increase in biomass under both drought and non-drought conditions. The researchers found that the biomass of HARDY rice increased by around 50 percent under conditions of water deprivation (drought) compared to the unmodified version of the same type of rice.

Dr. Andy Pereira, professor at VBI, stated: “This transdisciplinary research project involved the study of two plants. First we used a powerful gain-of-function screening technique to look at a large number of Arabidopsis plants that might have features favorable to water and drought resistance. We were able to identify the HARDY mutant due to its considerable reluctance to be pulled from the soil and its smaller, darker green leaves. Molecular and physiological characterization showed that the improved water usage efficiency was linked to the HARDY gene.”

Dr. Aarati Karaba, who worked on the project as a graduate student jointly at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India, and at Plant Research International, Wageningen, The Netherlands, commented: “The next step was to introduce the HARDY gene into rice and examine the features arising from this transformation. In rice, HARDY seems to work in a slightly different way than Arabidopsis but it still leads to improved water-use efficiency and higher biomass. Further studies showed that HARDY significantly enhances the capacity of rice to photosynthesize while at the same time reducing water loss from the crop.”

Dr. Andy Pereira, added: “DNA microarray analysis allowed us to look at gene expression patterns regulated by HARDY. We specifically focused on genes that have gene ontology (GO) terms, namely genes that have been assigned by the scientific community to specific biological processes or functions. Using this approach we were able to identify clusters of known genes regulated by HARDY whose levels changed under conditions of plant water deprivation. We also saw distinct changes of gene clusters linked to the metabolism of key proteins and carbohydrates, which probably explains some of the feature differences we have detected in Arabidopsis and rice.”

The scientists have been able to track down these improvements in water-use efficiency to a specific type of molecule known as AP2/ERF-like transcription factor. Transcription factors are proteins that bind to DNA and control gene expression and the HARDY gene encodes a protein that belongs to a specific class of AP2/ERF-like transcription factors. Shital Dixit, Graduate student at Plant Research International, Wageningen, The Netherlands, commented: “At this point in time, we do not know the exact function of this transcription factor although we suspect that it impacts maturation processes linked to tissue desiccation. More work remains to be done to elucidate the precise function of this protein as well as the processes on which it has a major impact. What is clear is that HARDY rice offers the exciting prospect of improved water-use efficiency and drought resistance in rice and perhaps other grain or seed crops. This should contribute in a sustainable way to maintaining high crop yields under conditions of limited water availability.”

###

* Karaba A, Dixit S, Greco R, Aharoni A, Trijatmiko KR, Marsch-Martinez N, Krishnan A, Nataraja KN, Udayakumar M, Pereira A (2007) Improvement of water use efficiency in rice by expression of HARDY an Arabidopsis drought and salt tolerance gene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press. Available in advance on-line at http://www.pnas.org/papbyrecent.shtml

New lung cancer guidelines oppose general CT screening

General CT screening for lung cancer is opposed by the latest guidelines issued by the American College of Chest Physicians. The guidelines assert that screening symptom-less individuals will do more harm than good. The topic continues to be controversial. The unambiguous ACCP guidelines may settle the issue at least for some time

K.S.Parthasarathy




Public release date: 10-Sep-2007
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/acoc-nlc090507.php
Contact: Jennifer Stawarz
jstawarz@chestnet.org
847-498-8306
American College of Chest Physicians
New lung cancer guidelines oppose general CT screening
Lung cancer recommendations -- avoid select vitamins, try acupuncture

(NORTHBROOK, IL, SEPTEMBER 10, 2007) – New evidenced-based guidelines from the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) recommend against the use of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) for the general screening of lung cancer. Published as a supplement to the September issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the ACCP, the guidelines cite there is little evidence to show lung cancer screening impacts mortality in patients, including those who are considered at high risk for the disease. The guidelines also recommend against the use of vitamin or mineral supplements for the prevention of lung cancer, for these do little to decrease the risk of lung cancer, while beta-carotene has been associated with increased risk of lung cancer.

“Even in high risk populations, currently available research data do not show that lung cancer screening alters mortality outcomes,” said W. Michael Alberts, MD, FCCP, chair of the ACCP lung cancer guidelines and Chief Medical Officer, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL. “We hope that one day, we can find a useful and accurate tool for general lung cancer screening, but, at this time, the evidence does not support the use of LDCT screening.”

In its second edition, Diagnosis and Management of Lung Cancer: ACCP Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines (2nd Edition) provides 260 of the most comprehensive recommendations related to lung cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis, staging, and medical and surgical treatments. The guidelines also review complementary and integrative therapy for the prevention and treatment of lung cancer.

SCREENING

Due to the lack of supporting evidence, the guidelines recommend against the use of LDCT, chest radiographs, or single or serial sputum cytologic evaluation for lung cancer screening in the general population, including smokers or others at high risk, except in the context of a well-designed clinical trial.

“Population screening for lung cancer is not recommended and may, ultimately, put the patient at risk for further complications,” said Gene L. Colice, MD, FCCP, vice chair of the ACCP lung cancer guidelines and Director, Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Respiratory Services, Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC. “Nodules are commonly found during screening; however, to determine whether they are cancerous requires additional testing, which is fairly invasive and extensive. This may cause the patient needless risk, both physically and psychologically.”

PREVENTION

The guidelines also recommend against the preventive use of several of the following common supplements and medications in at-risk patients or those with a history of lung cancer: Beta-carotene – The guidelines strongly recommend against the use of beta-carotene supplements for primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention, citing the higher incidence of lung cancer among those who use the supplement.

Vitamin A – The guidelines strongly recommend against the use of retinoids (vitamin A), including isotretinoin, for they have not been shown to decrease the incidence of second tumors and could increase mortality among current smokers.

Vitamin E – Vitamin E is not recommended for lung cancer prevention, as studies show no difference in the incidence of lung cancer among those taking vitamin E compared with those not taking it.

Aspirin – Although some literature suggests that aspirin may play a protective role regarding cancer, the guidelines do not recommend aspirin for the prevention of lung cancer, as studies show that aspirin does not decrease the risk of lung cancer or death due to lung cancer.

INTEGRATIVE THERAPY

For the first time, the ACCP lung cancer guidelines have included recommendations on mind-body modalities as part of a multimodality approach to reduce the anxiety, mood disturbances, and chronic pain associated with lung cancer. Massage therapy is recommended for patients who are experiencing anxiety or pain, while acupuncture is recommended for patients experiencing fatigue, dyspnea, chemo-induced neuropathy, or in cases where pain or nausea/vomiting is poorly controlled. Electrostimulation wristbands are not recommended for managing chemo-induced nausea/vomiting, as studies show that they do little to delay nausea/vomiting compared with placebo.

The recommendations were rigorously developed and reviewed by 100 multidisciplinary panel members, including pulmonologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, thoracic surgeons, integrative medicine specialists, oncology nurses, pathologists, health-care researchers, and epidemiologists. The guidelines were further reviewed and approved by the ACCP Thoracic Oncology NetWork, the Health and Science Policy Committee, the Board of Regents, and external reviewers from the journal CHEST. The guidelines have been endorsed by the American Association for Bronchology, American Association for Thoracic Surgery, American College of Surgeons Oncology Group, American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, Oncology Nurses Society, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and the World Association of Bronchology.

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in the United States, causing more deaths than the next four most common cancers combined, including colon, breast, pancreas, and prostate. Thirty-one percent of cancer deaths in men are attributable to lung cancer, while the number is slightly lower at 26% in women. However, if current trends continue, the incidence of lung cancer will be identical for men and women during the next decade.

“Each year, great strides are made in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, allowing patients with the disease to live longer and increase the quality of their lives. However, the real culprit behind lung cancer is tobacco,” said Mark J. Rosen, MD, FCCP, President of the American College of Chest Physicians. “Avoiding tobacco is the key to preventing most forms of lung cancer. Until we eliminate tobacco use completely, we will continue to deal with its devastating health consequences.”

###

CHEST is a peer-reviewed journal published by the ACCP. It is available online each month at www.chestjournal.org. The ACCP represents 16,600 members who provide clinical respiratory care, sleep medicine, critical care, and cardiothoracic patient care in the United States and throughout the world. The ACCP’s mission is to promote the prevention and treatment of diseases of the chest through leadership, education, research, and communication. For more information about the ACCP, please visit the ACCP Web site at www.chestnet.org.

Bacteria from sponges make new pharmaceuticals

Marine sponges are a rich source of chemical compounds; soem of them may have medicinal qualities. Researchers from the University college Berkley in California found.Presently only 0.1 to 1 percent of these can be artificially made in the lab. They are trying to increase this.

K.S.Parthasarathy

Public release date: 3-Sep-2007


Contact: Lucy Goodchild
l.goodchild@sgm.ac.uk
44-011-898-81843
Society for General Microbiology
Bacteria from sponges make new pharmaceuticals

Thousands of interesting new compounds have been discovered inside the bodies of marine sponges according to scientists speaking today (Tuesday 4 September 2007) at the Society for General Microbiology’s 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs from 3-6 September 2007.

Over half of the bodyweight of living sea sponges – including the sort that we use in our baths – is made up of the many different bacteria that live inside them, in the same way that we all have bacteria living in our guts which help us to digest our food.

“Marine sponges are the most prolific and important source of new active compounds discovered in the last twenty or thirty years in our seas. We thought it likely that many of the interesting new compounds we were discovering inside sea sponges were actually being made by the bacteria inside their bodies, not the sponges themselves”, says Dr Detmer Sipkema of University College Berkeley, in California, USA.

Unfortunately the scientists discovered that it is very difficult to grow these bacteria in the laboratory, as the environment inside a sponge is significantly different from conditions in the surrounding seawater. Currently, only between one in a hundred and one in a thousand types of bacteria can be cultured artificially.

“We are trying to culture the other 99% by simulating the microenvironment in the sponge where the bacteria live”, says Dr Sipkema. “The next step will be to identify which bacteria are responsible for the production of the most medically interesting compounds and try to culture these on a larger scale. Most attempts to properly test these important bioactive compounds in hospital patients have failed because doctors simply cannot get enough of the products to prove that the clinical trials are effective or safe”.

So far, by trying a lot of different cultivation methods, the scientists have been successful in culturing about 10% of the different sorts of bacteria that live in the sponges.

As well as their attempt to produce useful pharmaceutical compounds on a commercial scale, the researchers believe that successfully culturing these little known bacteria will give new insights into evolution.

“Marine sponges were the first multicellular organisms to evolve on earth that are still alive. This implies that the relationship between the sponge and its bacterial inhabitants may also be very old”, says Dr Detmer Sipkema. “Therefore sponges are interesting to study the evolution of symbiosis, teaching us about the way different organisms have developed their mutual relationships”.
###

Notes to News Editors:
For further information contact Dr Detmer Sipkema, Chemical Engineering, UC Berkeley, tel: +1 510 642 8060, fax: +1 510 643 1228, email: detmer@berkeley.edu

Dr Sipkema is presenting the paper ‘Artificial symbiosis: isolation, identification and growth of marine sponge bacterial symbionts’ at 1100 on Tuesday 04 September 2007 in the Physiology, Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics Group session of the 161st Meeting of the Society for General Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, 03 - 06 September 2007.

For press enquiries during the meeting please contact the SGM desk on +44 (0) 131 650 4581 or mobile telephone +44 (0) 7824 88 30 10

For enquiries prior to the meeting contact Lucy Goodchild at the SGM office, tel: +44 (0) 118 988 1843, fax: +44 (0) 118 988 5656, email: l.goodchild@sgm.ac.uk

Full programme details of this meeting can be found on the Society's website at: http://www.sgm.ac.uk/meetings/MTGPAGES/Edinburgh07.cfm. Hard copies are available on request from the SGM.

The Society for General Microbiology is the largest microbiology society in Europe, and has over 5,500 members worldwide. The Society provides a common meeting ground for scientists working in research and in fields with applications in microbiology including medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmaceuticals, industry, agriculture, food, the environment and education.

The SGM represents the science and profession of microbiology to government, the media and the general public; supporting microbiology education at all levels; and encouraging careers in microbiology.

Viruses to treat bactrial diseases

Viruses can be made to treat bacterial diseases. Ths targetted treatment will spare useful bacteria.

K.S.Parthasarathy
Public release date: 2-Sep-2007

Contact: Lucy Goodchild
l.goodchild@sgm.ac.uk
44-011-898-81843
Society for General Microbiology
New viruses to treat bacterial diseases -- 'My enemies' enemy is my friend'

Viruses found in the River Cam in Cambridge, famous as a haunt of students in their punts on long, lazy summer days, could become the next generation of antibiotics, according to scientists speaking today (Monday 3 September 2007) at the Society for General Microbiology’s 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs from 3-6 September 2007.

With antibiotics now over-prescribed for treatments of bacterial infections, and patients failing to complete their courses of treatment properly, many bacteria are able to pick up an entire array of antibiotic resistance genes easily by swapping genetic material with each other.

MRSA – the multiple drug resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus - and newly emerging strains of the superbug Clostridium difficile have forced medical researchers to realise that an entirely different approach is required to combat these bacteria.

“By using a virus that only attacks bacteria, called a phage – and some phages only attack specific types of bacteria – we can treat infections by targeting the exact strain of bacteria causing the disease”, says Ana Toribio from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK. “This is much more targeted than conventional antibiotic therapy”.

The scientists used a close relative of Escherichia coli, the bacterium that commonly causes food poisoning and gastrointestinal infections in humans, called Citrobacter rodentium, which has exactly the same gastrointestinal effects in mice. They were able to treat the infected mice with a cocktail of phages obtained from the River Cam that target C. rodentium. At present they are optimizing the selection of the viruses by DNA analysis to utilise phage with different profiles.

“Using phages rather than traditional broad-spectrum antibiotics, which essentially try to kill all bacteria they come across, is much better because they do not upset the normal microbial balance in the body”, says Dr Derek Pickard from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. “We all need good bacteria to help us fight off infections, to digest our food and provide us with essential nutrients, and conventional antibiotics can kill these too, while they are fighting the disease-causing bacteria”

Phage based treatment has been largely ignored until recently in Western Europe and the USA. The main human clinical reports have come from Eastern Europe, particularly the Tbilisi Bacteriophage Institute in Georgia where bacteriophages are used for successful treatment of infections such as diabetic ulcers and wounds. More studies are planned along western clinical trial lines with all the standards required.

“The more we can develop the treatment and understand the obstacles encountered in using this method to treat gut infections, the more likely we are to maximise its chance of success in the long term”, says Ana Toribio. “We have found that using a variety of phages to treat one disease has many benefits over just using one phage type to attack a dangerous strain of bacteria, overcoming any potential resistance to the phage from bacterial mutations”.

“This brings us back to the problem we are trying to address in the first place. If anything, conventional antibiotic treatment has led to MRSA and other superbug infections becoming not only more prevalent but also more infectious and dangerous. Bacteriophage therapy offers an alternative that needs to be taken seriously in Western Europe”, says Derek Pickard.
###

Notes to News Editors:
For further information contact Dr Derek Pickard, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridgeshire, tel: 01223 495391, fax: 01223 494919, email: djp@sanger.ac.uk

Ms Toribio is presenting the poster ‘Citrobacter rodentium phage: Characterization and screening for phage therapy applications’ at 1520 on Monday 03 September 2007 in the Environmental Microbiology Group session of the 161st Meeting of the Society for General Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh, 03 - 06 September 2007.

For press enquiries during the meeting please contact the SGM desk on +44 (0) 131 650 4581 or mobile telephone +44 (0) 7824 88 30 10

For enquiries prior to the meeting contact Lucy Goodchild at the SGM office, tel: +44 (0) 118 988 1843, fax: +44 (0) 118 988 5656, email: l.goodchild@sgm.ac.uk

Full programme details of this meeting can be found on the Society's website at: http://www.sgm.ac.uk/meetings/MTGPAGES/Edinburgh07.cfm. Hard copies are available on request from the SGM.

The Society for General Microbiology is the largest microbiology society in Europe, and has over 5,500 members worldwide. The Society provides a common meeting ground for scientists working in research and in fields with applications in microbiology including medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmaceuticals, industry, agriculture, food, the environment and education.

The SGM represents the science and profession of microbiology to government, the media and the general public; supporting microbiology education at all levels; and encouraging careers in microbiology.

Pets! please keep away from smokers

Pets get hurt by second hand smoke. Tuft College of Veterinary Medicine found a strong correlation between secondhand smoke and certain forms of cancer in cats. Believe it or not smoke has been associated with oral cancer and lymphoma in cats, lung and nasal cancer in dogs, as well as lung cancer in birds.Short and medium nose dogs have a higher occurrence of lung cancer. This is because their shorter nasal passages aren’t as effective at accumulating the inhaled secondhand smoke carcinogens.Smoke particles laced with carcinogens get deposited in their lungs

Birds exposed to smoke pneumonia or lung cancer; other risks include eye, skin, heart and fertility problems.

K.S.Parthasarathy


Public release date: 31-Aug-2007

Contact: Trisha Gedon
trisha.gedon@okstate.edu
405-744-3625
Oklahoma State University
Secondhand smoke is a health threat to pets
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/osu-ssi083107.php

It has been in the news for years about how secondhand smoke is a health threat to nonsmokers. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that secondhand smoke is attributed with killing thousands of adult nonsmokers annually.

If smoking is that harmful to human beings, it would make sense that secondhand smoke would have an adverse effect on pets that live in the homes of smokers, said Dr. Carolynn MacAllister, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Service veterinarian.

“There have been a number of scientific papers recently that have reported the significant health threat secondhand smoke poses to pets,” MacAllister said. “Secondhand smoke has been associated with oral cancer and lymphoma in cats, lung and nasal cancer in dogs, as well as lung cancer in birds.”

She said a study conducted recently at Tuft College of Veterinary Medicine found a strong correlation between secondhand smoke and certain forms of cancer in cats. The number of cats with mouth cancer, also known as squamous cell carcinoma, was higher for those animals living in smoking environments versus those felines living in a smoke-free home. In addition, cats that lived with smokers for five or more years had an even higher incidence of this type of oral cancer.

“One reason cats are so susceptible to secondhand smoke is because of their grooming habits. Cats constantly lick themselves while grooming, therefore they lick up the cancer-causing carcinogens that accumulate on their fur,” MacAllister said. “This grooming behavior exposes the mucous membrane of their mouth to the cancer-causing carcinogens.”

Malignant lymphoma is another type of cancer that cats that live with smokers have a higher risk of getting. This cancer occurs in the lymph nodes and cats are twice as likely to have this type of cancer compared to cats living in a non-smoking home. This form of cancer is fatal to three out of four cats within 12 months of developing the cancer.

MacAllister also pointed out that secondhand smoke is greatly associated with the increased occurrence of cancer in the nose and sinus area among dogs. Research also indicates a slight association with lung cancer.

“A recent study conducted at Colorado State University shows that there is a higher incidence of nasal tumors in dogs living in a home with secondhand smoke compared to dogs living in a smoke free environment,” she said. “The increased incidence was specifically found among the long nosed breed of dogs. Shorter or medium nosed dogs showed higher rates for lung cancer.”

MacAllister said the longer nosed breeds of dogs have a great surface area in their noses that is exposed to the carcinogens. This also provides more area in which the carcinogens can accumulate. The carcinogens tend to build up on the mucous membranes of long nosed dogs so not as much reaches the lungs.

Unfortunately, dogs affected with nasal cancer normally do not survive more than one year.

“The reason short and medium nose dogs have a higher occurrence of lung cancer is because their shorter nasal passages aren’t as effective at accumulating the inhaled secondhand smoke carcinogens,” she said. “This results in more carcinogens reaching the lungs.”

Pet birds also are victims of secondhand smoke. A bird’s respiratory system is hypersensitive to any type of pollutant in the air.

MacAllister said the most serious consequences of secondhand smoke exposure in birds are pneumonia or lung cancer. Other health risks include eye, skin, heart and fertility problems.

Secondhand smoke is not the only danger faced by pets that live in smoke filled environments. Poisoning is another risk they face.

“Curious pets can eat cigarettes and other tobacco products if the products aren’t stored properly,” MacAllister said. “When ingested, this can cause nicotine poisoning, which can be fatal.”

It is important, both for the health of pets and others living in the household, that the smoker has a designated area in which to smoke that is physically separated from the home. In addition, always keep cigarettes, cigarette butts and other tobacco products put away.

“A better choice that could enhance your chances of enjoying a healthier lifestyle with your family and pets would be to stop smoking altogether,” MacAllister said.

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Oklahoma State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, State and Local Governments Cooperating: The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or status as a veteran, and is an equal opportunity employer.