UCR scientists identify pomegranate juice components that could stop cancer from spreading.

Riverside- California    One of the deadly complications of cancer cells is their tendency to get detached from the primary site and spread rapidly through the lymphatic system. Such detached cells multiply independently at different sites. In such instances the physicians have to use chemotherapy to kill the malignant cells, a treatment which has side effects.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have identified components in pomegranate juice that both inhibit the movement of cancer cells and weaken their attraction to a chemical signal that promotes the metastasis of prostate cancer to the bone. The research could lead to new therapies for preventing cancer metastasis.

Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology, presented the research today (Dec. 12, 2010) at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology taking place in Philadelphia.
Prostate cancer is not curable and is the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men in the United States. If prostate cancer recurs after surgery and/or radiotherapy , usually the next treatment is the suppression of the male hormone testosterone, which inhibits the growth of the cancer cells because they need this hormone to grow. Cancer cells are too clever. Over time, they develop ways to resist hormone suppression therapies, become very aggressive, and metastasize to the bone marrow, lungs, and lymph nodes, usually resulting in the patient's death.
The Martins-Green lab applied pomegranate juice on laboratory-cultured prostate cancer cells that were resistant to testosterone (the more resistant a cancer cell is to testosterone, the more prone it is to metastasizing).

The researchers – Martins-Green, graduate student Lei Wang and undergraduate students Andre Alcon and Jeffrey Ho – found that the pomegranate juice-treated tumor cells that had not died with the treatment showed increased cell adhesion (meaning fewer cells breaking away) and decreased cell migration.
Next, the researchers identified the active groups of ingredients such as phenylpropanoids, hydrobenzoic acids, flavones and conjugated fatty acids in pomegranate juice that had a molecular impact on cell adhesion and migration in metastatic prostate cancer cells.
"Having identified them, we can now modify cancer-inhibiting components in pomegranate juice to improve their functions and make them more effective in preventing prostate cancer metastasis, leading to more effective drug therapies," Martins-Green said. "Because the genes and proteins involved in the movement of prostate cancer cells are essentially the same as those involved in the movement of other types of cancer cells, the same modified components of the juice could have a much broader impact in cancer treatment."
Martins-Green explained that an important protein produced in the bone marrow causes the cancer cells to move to the bone where they can then form new tumors.
"We show that pomegranate juice markedly inhibits the function of this protein, and thus this juice has the potential of preventing metastasis of the prostate cancer cells to the bone," Martins-Green said.
Next, her lab plans to do additional tests in an in vivo model for prostate cancer metastasis to determine whether the same cancer-inhibiting components that work in cultured cells can prevent metastasis without side effects.
                                                                                 ******

Five-Year Study Shows ‘Healthy Worker Effect’ At US Paducah Plant

Five-Year Study Shows ‘Healthy Worker Effect’ At US Paducah Plant

A five-year study into the causes of deaths of workers at
the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) in the US state of Kentucky
shows significantly lower death rates from all causes and cancer in general
when compared to the overall US population.

However, death from lymphatic and bone marrow cancers such as leukemia or
multiple myeloma were slightly above national rates.This result is similar to those reported earlier.

The University of Louisville’s School of Public
Health and Information Sciences, the University of Cincinnati and the
University of Kentucky conducted the study.

Researchers compiled data from employees’ work history, demographic
records and records from the US Social Security Administration, the
National Death Index and individual state departments. They found complete
data for 6,759 of the 6,820 employees who worked at the plant for at least
30 days between September 1952 and December 2009.

Out of those 6,759 people, the researchers identified 1,638 deaths. This
is fewer than the 2,253 deaths that would have been expected in the general
public.

They also found that 461 of the deaths were attributed to cancer, much less than 592, to be expected from comparable sized group in the general public.

Researchers concluded that overall mortality and cancer rates were lower
than the reference population, reflecting a “strong healthy worker effect”.
This effect is well known by epidemiologists. Regular medical check-ups and
better early care for health problems among workers in industries such as
nuclear result in generally better health for these workers compared to the
average population.

PGDP is the only gas-diffusion enrichment facility still operating in the
US. Two other plants existed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Piketon, Ohio.
Studies had been conducted for these plants, but none had yet been
conducted for PGDP.

David Tollerud, professor of environmental and occupational health
sciences at the University of Louisville’s School of Public Health and
Information Sciences, said the study addressed lingering concerns about the
health of workers at the plant.

He said: “It is important for occupational health and public health
research to attempt to answer pressing concerns of impacted populations,
and we were able to report that we didn't find unexpectedly high rates of
disease in this workforce.”

Security workers had higher overall death rates than other employees,
while chemical operators had higher death rates from leukemia and multiple
myeloma than the rest of the workers.

The increased number of lymphatic and bone marrow cancer deaths is
consistent with what researchers expected, Mr Tollerud said. “Based on
other studies, these forms of cancer have been linked to low levels of
radiation exposure.”

The Paducah plant was commissioned in 1952 as part of a US government
programme to produce enriched uranium to fuel military reactors and nuclear
weapons.

The plant’s mission changed in the 1960s from enriching uranium for
nuclear weapons to enriching uranium for use in commercial nuclear reactors
to generate electricity. It is owned by the US. Department of Energy and is
leased and operated by the United States Enrichment Corporation, a
subsidiary of USEC Inc.

The study, titled ‘Mortality among PGDP workers,’ was published in the
July 2010 edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
(www.joem.org).

>

FDA Gives Green Light to First Embryonic Stem Cell Trial in Humans

On July 30, 2010, Geron Corporation , a company developing biopharmaceuticals to treat cancer and chronic degenerative diseases, including spinal cord injury, heart failure and diabetes announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has notified them that the clinical hold placed on its Investigational New Drug (IND) application has been lifted and the company's Phase I clinical trial of GRNOPC1 in patients with acute spinal cord injury may proceed.
It is the first embryonic stem cell clinical trial approved by the FDA.
The Phase I multi-center trial may hopefully establish the safety of GRNOPC1 in patients with "complete" American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale grade A sub-acute thoracic spinal cord injuries.
"We are pleased with the FDA's decision to allow our planned clinical trial of GRNOPC1 in spinal cord injury to proceed," said Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., Geron's president and CEO. "Our goals for the application of GRNOPC1 in subacute spinal cord injury are unchanged - to achieve restoration of spinal cord function by the injection of hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells directly into the lesion site of the patient's injured spinal cord. Additionally, we are now formally exploring the utility of GRNOPC1 in other degenerative CNS disorders including Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and Canavan disease."
FDA placed a hold on the trial following results from a single preclinical animal study in which Geron observed a higher frequency of small cysts within the injury site in the spinal cord of animals injected with GRNOPC1 than had previously been noted in numerous foregoing studies.
In response to those results, Geron developed new markers and assays as additional release specifications for GRNOPC1. The company completed an additional confirmatory preclinical animal study to test the new markers and assays, and subsequently submitted a request to the FDA for the clinical hold to be lifted.
GRNOPC1, Geron's lead hESC-based therapeutic candidate, contains hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells that have demonstrated remyelinating and nerve growth stimulating properties leading to restoration of function in animal models of acute spinal cord injury (Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 25, 2005).
"The neurosurgical community is ready to begin the clinical testing of this new approach to treating devastating spinal cord injury," said Richard Fessler, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. "We know that demyelination is central to the pathology of the injury, and its reversal by means of injecting oligodendrocyte progenitor cells would be revolutionary for the field. If found to be safe and effective, the therapy would provide a viable treatment option for thousands of patients who suffer severe spinal cord injuries each year."
The GRNOPC1 Clinical Program
Patients eligible for the Phase I trial must have documented evidence of functionally complete spinal cord injury with a neurological level of T3 to T10 spinal segments and agree to have GRNOPC1 injected into the lesion sites between seven and 14 days after injury.
Although the primary endpoint of the trial is safety, the protocol includes secondary endpoints to assess efficacy, such as improved neuromuscular control or sensation in the trunk or lower extremities. Once safety in this patient population has been established, Geron plans to seek FDA approval to extend the study to increase the dose of GRNOPC1, enroll subjects with complete cervical injuries and expand the trial to include patients with severe incomplete (ASIA Impairment Scale grade B or C) injuries to enable access to the therapy for as broad a population of severe spinal cord-injured patients as is medically appropriate.
Geron has selected up to seven U.S. medical centers as candidates to participate in this study and in planned protocol extensions. The sites will be identified as they come online and are ready to enroll subjects into the study.
Other Potential Neurological Indications for GRNOPC1
Geron claimed that in addition to spinal cord injury, GRNOPC1 may have therapeutic utility for other central nervous system indications. It has established many collaborations with academic groups to test GRNOPC1 in selected animal models of human disease for which there is a strong rationale for the approach.
The company listed other areas of work in which it is actively involved.
Alzheimer's Disease: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, fatal, degenerative disorder that attacks the neurons in the brain, resulting in loss of memory, cognitive function such as reasoning and language, and behavioral changes. According to the Alzheimer's Association an estimated five million people in the United States have Alzheimer's disease. GRNOPC1 is being evaluated in animal models of Alzheimer's disease in collaboration with Professor Frank M. LaFerla, Director of the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) at the University of California, Irvine.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS): MS is an autoimmune disease that causes demyelination of nerve axons in the brain and spinal cord often progressing to physical and cognitive disability. There is currently no known cure for the disease. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society there are about 400,000 people in the United States with MS. GRNOPC1 is being tested in a non-human primate model of MS in collaboration with Professor Jeffery D. Kocsis of the Departments of Neurology and Neurobiology at Yale University School of Medicine and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Canavan Disease: Canavan disease is a fatal neurological disorder that belongs to a group of genetic disorders called leukodystrophies, characterized by the abnormal development or degeneration of myelin. Symptoms of Canavan disease present in the first six months of life and death usually occurs at 3 - 10 years of age. GRNOPC1 is being tested in a rodent model of Canavan disease in collaboration with Dr. Paola Leone, Director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Center, at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Genes from sweet pepper can fortify African banana against devastating wilt disease

Genes from sweet pepper can fortify African banana against devastating wilt disease

The BXW or Banana Xanthomonas Wilt is the tongue twisting name of a disease which wipes out banana in vast areas in the Great lake region of Africa. It costs about half a billion dollars worth of damage every year across East and Central Africa. The leaves of affected crops turn yellow and then wilt, and the fruit ripens unevenly and prematurely. Eventually the entire plant withers and rots.

Crop scientists announced today the successful transfer of green pepper genes to bananas, conferring on the popular fruit the means to resist the disease.
Dr. Leena Tripathi, a biotechnologist with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and lead author of the paper, said there is still a long way to go before the transgenic bananas find their way onto farmers' fields, but she called the breakthrough "a significant step in the fight against the deadly banana disease."
The transformed bananas, newly-infused with one of two proteins from the green pepper, have shown strong resistance to Xanthomonas wilt in the laboratory and in screen houses. The researchers are poised to begin confined field trials in Uganda soon.
Some of the findings on the protective impact of the two proteins—plant ferredoxin-like amphipathic protein (Pflp) and hypersensitive response-assisting protein (Hrap)—were published recently in the journal Molecular Plant Pathology.
"The Hrap and Pflp genes work by rapidly killing the cells that come into contact with the disease-spreading bacteria, essentially blocking it from spreading any further," Tripathi said. "Hopefully, this will boost the arsenal available to fight BXW and help save millions of farmers' livelihoods in the Great Lakes region."
The novel green pepper proteins that give crops enhanced resistance against deadly pathogens can also provide effective control against other BXW-like bacterial diseases in other parts of the world. Tripathi adds that the mechanism known as Hypersensitivity Response also activates the defenses of surrounding and even distant uninfected banana plants leading to a systemic acquired resistance.
Scientists from the IITA and the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) of Uganda, in partnership with African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), will soon begin evaluating these promising new banana lines under confined field trials. The Ugandan National Biosafety Committee recently approved the tests, which can now move forward.
The genes used in this research were acquired under an agreement from the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
The highly destructive BXW affects all varieties, including the East African Highland bananas and exotic dessert, roasting, and beer bananas. The crop is also under threat from another deadly disease, the banana bunchy top.
Dr. Tripathi says that there are presently no commercial chemicals, biocontrol agents or resistant varieties that can control the spread of BXW. "Even if a source of resistance is identified today," Tripathi said, "developing a truly resistant banana through conventional breeding would be extremely difficult and would take years, even decades, given the crop's sterility and its long gestation period."
BXW was first reported in Ethiopia 40 years ago on Ensete, a crop relative of banana, before it moved on to bananas. Outside of Ethiopia, it was first reported in Uganda in 2001, then rapidly spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Burundi, leaving behind a trail of destruction in Africa's largest banana producing and consuming region.
BXW can be managed by de-budding the banana plant (removing the male bud as soon as the last hand of the female bunch is revealed) and sterilizing farm implements used. However, the adoption of these practices has been inconsistent at best as farmers believe that de-budding affects the quality of the fruit and sterilizing farm tools is a tedious task.
The research to fortify bananas against BXW using genes from sweet pepper was initiated in 2007.

Why MRC did not fund IVF research that led to Louise Brown, the first test tube baby?

Why MRC didn't fund IVF research that led to the birth of the world's first test tube baby
Louise Brown, the first “test tube baby” was born on July 25, 1978. Since then, an estimated 4.3 million babies have been born worldwide with the help of a range of fertility treatments.
The UK Medical Research Council refused to fund the research on In Vitro Fertilization which led to the breakthrough. Finally, the project funds came from a private trust
For the first time, the reasons for MRC’s denial for funding, was disclosed in a paper published in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction.
The authors of the new research, led by Martin Johnson, Professor of Reproductive Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, write: "The failure of Edwards' and Steptoe's application for long-term support was not simply due to widespread establishment hostility to IVF. It failed, we argue for more complex reasons".
They listed the following reasons:
• A strategic error by Edwards and Steptoe when they declined an invitation from the MRC to join a new, directly funded Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow. They preferred to ask for long-term grant support at the University of Cambridge, but this meant they had to compete for funding with all the other research projects bidding for MRC support. This was also difficult for Cambridge, which lacked the back-up of an academic Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at that time.
• Most of the MRC referees who were consulted on the proposal considered, in line with government policy, that it was more important to limit fertility and the growth of Britain's population than to treat infertility. Treating infertility was seen as experimental research rather than as therapeutic.
• Concerns about embryo quality (would babies be born with severe abnormalities?) and patient safety made the referees doubt the wisdom of funding embryo transfer without conducting studies in primates first.
• Edwards' and Steptoe's high profile in the media antagonised the referees who strongly disapproved of this method of public discussion of the science and ethics of treating infertility.
Additionally, MRC saw Edwards and Steptoe as not being part of the "medical establishment". "Steptoe came from a minor northern hospital, while Edwards, though from Cambridge, was neither medically qualified nor yet a professor." Prof Johnson and his colleagues clarified..
Edwards had a PhD in developmental genetics from the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, then the leading UK centre in the field.
According to Professor Johnson the MRC's negative decision on funding of IVF, and their public defence of this decision, had major consequences for Edwards and Steptoe and set MRC policy on IVF research funding for the next eight years.
MRC reversed their decision after the birth of two healthy babies from seven IVF pregnancies. The MRC announced a change of policy in its 1978/79 Annual Report. Thereafter, MRC became a strong and major supporter of research on human IVF and human embryos; although not on follow-up of IVF pregnancies.
Prof Johnson and his colleagues, Sarah Franklin, Matthew Cottingham and Nick Hopwood, spent three years studying the MRC records at the National Archives at Kew in Surrey, and also documents from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge University Library.
Bob Edwards' wife, Ruth, gave them access to his private papers, and the researchers also interviewed many of the key players involved in the MRC's decision in 1971 not to fund the research.
In an accompanying editorial, Professor John Biggers from Harvard Medical School (USA), writes: "By taking us back 40 years, the authors have demonstrated the importance of understanding a decision in light of the culture and circumstances at the time the decision was made. Although the grant was rejected, Edwards' and Steptoe's visions and persistence have benefited an enormous number of infertile people, both male and female."
The researchers observations are very interesting. According to Prof Johnson the story of the MRC's non-funding of IVF belies the cliché that science 'races ahead' of society. Similarly, the standard view, that ethical consideration of bioscience and biomedicine can only ever be reactive, is contradicted by the evidence of extensive ethical debate surrounding the prehistory of clinical IVF – most of it actively stimulated by Edwards himself.
The developments preceding the great breakthrough revealed a few other facts. Although attitudes to medical scientists in the media have changed significantly since the 1970s, scientists and clinicians engaged in high-profile work still face a dilemma. If they encourage public discussion of their work – which they may see as both necessary to securing support and desirable to ensure full ethical debate – must they inevitably weaken their standing among their peers?
The researchers claimed that their case study questions the myth of two courageous mavericks pitted against a conservative establishment. “This myth does capture important elements of truth: Edwards and Steptoe were outsiders and did pioneer—against prevailing wisdom—new ideas, therapies, values, public discourses and ethical thinking. But the process of decision-making was more complex than the myth allows. Our research provides a fuller understanding of what happened at the birth of the IVF revolution." They noted
Prof Johnson believes that today the decision-making processes involved in awarding funding for projects are more open and transparent, with discussion in the wider community and in the media actively welcomed, as was the case with the two Human Fertilisation and Embryology Acts in 1990 and 2008.
"A continuing problem, however, is more to do with the fact that there are some very fashionable topics that can create a buzz and attract huge research interest and funding, sometimes in disproportionate amounts; then it was fertility limitation, more recently genome sequencing would be an example. This can leave other Cinderella topics languishing in the ashes, with little financial support, even though they might well play an equally, if not more, important role in patient welfare."

WSU researchers use super-high pressures to create super battery

Public release date: 4-Jul-2010

Contact: Choong-Shik Yoo
csyoo@wsu.edu
925-640-7549
Washington State University

WSU researchers use super-high pressures to create super battery
'Most condensed form of energy storage outside of nuclear energy'

PULLMAN, Wash.—The world's biggest Roman candle has got nothing on this.

Using super-high pressures similar to those found deep in the Earth or on a giant planet, Washington State University researchers have created a compact, never-before-seen material capable of storing vast amounts of energy.

"If you think about it, it is the most condensed form of energy storage outside of nuclear energy," says Choong-Shik Yoo, a WSU chemistry professor and lead author of results published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

The research is basic science, but Yoo says it shows it is possible to store mechanical energy into the chemical energy of a material with such strong chemical bonds. Possible future applications include creating a new class of energetic materials or fuels, an energy storage device, super-oxidizing materials for destroying chemical and biological agents, and high-temperature superconductors.

The researchers created the material on the Pullman campus in a diamond anvil cell, a small, two-inch by three-inch-diameter device capable of producing extremely high pressures in a small space. The cell contained xenon difluoride (XeF2), a white crystal used to etch silicon conductors, squeezed between two small diamond anvils.


At normal atmospheric pressure, the material's molecules stay relatively far apart from each other. But as researchers increased the pressure inside the chamber, the material became a two-dimensional graphite-like semiconductor. The researchers eventually increased the pressure to more than a million atmospheres, comparable to what would be found halfway to the center of the earth. All this "squeezing," as Yoo calls it, forced the molecules to make tightly bound three-dimensional metallic "network structures." In the process, the huge amount of mechanical energy of compression was stored as chemical energy in the molecules' bonds.


###
Financial support for the research came from the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Science Foundation.

Using carbon nanotubes in lithium batteries can dramatically improve energy capacity

Public release date: 20-Jun-2010

Contact: Jennifer Hirsch
jfhirsch@mit.edu
617-253-1682
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Using carbon nanotubes in lithium batteries can dramatically improve energy capacity
New method produced up to ten fold increase in power

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Batteries might gain a boost in power capacity as a result of a new finding from researchers at MIT. They found that using carbon nanotubes for one of the battery's electrodes produced a significant increase — up to tenfold — in the amount of power it could deliver from a given weight of material, compared to a conventional lithium-ion battery. Such electrodes might find applications in small portable devices, and with further research might also lead to improved batteries for larger, more power-hungry applications.

To produce the powerful new electrode material, the team used a layer-by-layer fabrication method, in which a base material is alternately dipped in solutions containing carbon nanotubes that have been treated with simple organic compounds that give them either a positive or negative net charge. When these layers are alternated on a surface, they bond tightly together because of the complementary charges, making a stable and durable film.

The findings, by a team led by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Yang Shao-Horn, in collaboration with Bayer Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering Paula Hammond, are reported in a paper published June 20 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The lead authors are chemical engineering student Seung Woo Lee PhD '10 and postdoctoral researcher Naoaki Yabuuchi.

Batteries, such as the lithium-ion batteries widely used in portable electronics, are made up of three basic components: two electrodes (called the anode, or negative electrode, and the cathode, or positive electrode) separated by an electrolyte, an electrically conductive material through which charged particles, or ions, can move easily. When these batteries are in use, positively charged lithium ions travel across the electrolyte to the cathode, producing an electric current; when they are recharged, an external current causes these ions to move the opposite way, so they become embedded in the spaces in the porous material of the anode.

In the new battery electrode, carbon nanotubes — a form of pure carbon in which sheets of carbon atoms are rolled up into tiny tubes — "self-assemble" into a tightly bound structure that is porous at the nanometer scale (billionths of a meter). In addition, the carbon nanotubes have many oxygen groups on their surfaces, which can store a large number of lithium ions; this enables carbon nanotubes for the first time to serve as the positive electrode in lithium batteries, instead of just the negative electrode.

This "electrostatic self-assembly" process is important, Hammond explains, because ordinarily carbon nanotubes on a surface tend to clump together in bundles, leaving fewer exposed surfaces to undergo reactions. By incorporating organic molecules on the nanotubes, they assemble in a way that "has a high degree of porosity while having a great number of nanotubes present," she says.

Lithium batteries with the new material demonstrate some of the advantages of both capacitors, which can produce very high power outputs in short bursts, and lithium batteries, which can provide lower power steadily for long periods, Lee says. The energy output for a given weight of this new electrode material was shown to be five times greater than for conventional capacitors, and the total power delivery rate was 10 times that of lithium-ion batteries, the team says. This performance can be attributed to good conduction of ions and electrons in the electrode, and efficient lithium storage on the surface of the nanotubes.

In addition to their high power output, the carbon nanotube electrodes showed very good stability over time. After 1,000 cycles of charging and discharging a test battery, there was no detectable change in the material's performance.

The electrodes the team produced had thicknesses up to a few microns, and the improvements in energy delivery only were seen at high-power output levels. In future work, the team aims to produce thicker electrodes and extend the improved performance to low-power outputs as well, they say. In its present form, the material might have applications for small, portable electronic devices, says Shao-Horn, but if the reported high power capability were demonstrated in a much thicker form — with thicknesses of hundreds of microns rather than just a few — it might eventually be suitable for other applications such as hybrid cars.

While the electrode material was produced by alternately dipping a substrate into two different solutions — a relatively time-consuming process — Hammond suggests that the process could be modified by instead spraying the alternate layers onto a moving ribbon of material, a technique now being developed in her lab. This could eventually open the possibility of a continuous manufacturing process that could be scaled up to high volumes for commercial production, and could also be used to produce thicker electrodes with a greater power capacity. "There isn't a real limit" on the potential thickness, Hammond says. "The only limit is the time it takes to make the layers," and the spraying technique can be up to 100 times faster than dipping, she says.

Lee says that while carbon nanotubes have been produced in limited quantities so far, a number of companies are currently gearing up for mass production of the material, which could help to make it a viable material for large-scale battery manufacturing.

###

Source: "High-power lithium batteries from functionalized carbon nanotube electrodes." Seung Woo Lee, Naoaki Yabuuchi, Betar M. Gallant, Shuo Chen, Byeong-Su Kim, Paula T. Hammond, & Yang Shao-Horn. Nature Nanotechnology. 19 June 2010.

Stem cell charlatans

In the latest British Medical Journal, Bob Roehr quoted Irving Weissman, the Stanford University researcher and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research society as saying that the society launched a patient education website "to smoke out the charlatans" who prey upon desperately ill people and their families(BMJ 2010;340:c3271. This is a step in the right direction.

Dr Weissman, clarified that probably no other society has ever done this before. He was addressing the opening of their annual meeting on 16 June, in San Francisco.

Deveoloping countries are the preferred havens for the charlatans to prey on the gullible patients.

Bob Roehr argued that the problem is large and growing. He revealed that a recent web search identified more than 200 practitioners or clinics making claims for stem cell cures;, they thrive in developing countries obviously because regulatory oversight is weak in such countries. It is unbelievable that a clinic in China claimed to have treated over 8000 people, generating over $200m (£137m; 165m) in revenue.

It is difficult to arrest these activities. The scoiety felt that basic education about stem cells may help.The society’s new website, www.closerlookatstemcells.org, offers such material. According to the website a reputable clinical trial will have a body of scientific literature behind it; will be scrutinised by an independent review board; and will have the approval of the relevant national regulatory authorities. And it will not charge for participating in the trial.

The website allows a person to submit the name of a clinic for review. The society will then ask the clinic for documentation on ethical and regulatory review of the proposed treatment. That information will form a publicly available online database. It is not clear why a crook who is cashing on the misery of a victim should cooperate for such a review.

Bob Roehr quotes the case of a farmer who spent $80,000 for a stem cell "cure" for multiple sclerosis. An instance Dr Weissman found out while he gave a lecture in his home town, Great Falls, Montana, his hometown with a population of a little over 50 000. It is a pity that people mortgage their homes desperately seeking a cure where there is none.

The service offered by the society is laudable.Jeanne F Loring from the Scripps Research Institute a speker at th emeeting highlighted other issues. She pointed ouyt that patient testimonials are a hallmark of these operations. You will not see is any scientific evidence. There will be no guarantee that you will be helped by that treatment. Lastly,there are no guarantees that you won’t be harmed.

Clinics may use inappropriate treatment. According to the researcher, these clinics often use cord blood or placental cells, which may not be appropriate for the intended use. They may use cells derived from animals, or inject cell solutions that are tainted with other products.

Dr Loring suggested that if patients could procure a sample of the cells that are going to be injected, freeze them, and send them to her, she will analyse it for free and tell you what those stem cells are. This is indeed a generous offer.She can be contacted at jloring@scripps.edu

Regrettably, reporters of some popular newspapers in India unwittingly publicize the magic cures. They do not know the damage they are doing. They must resist the temptation; publish only those cures only if they appear in peer reviewed literature.

Highly efficient solar cells could result from quantum dot research

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin feel that they can enhance the limit of efficiency of currently available solar cells from 3o percent to 60 percent by converting the splar heat lost in the cells by a suitable design modification. They are confident that "there is no reason that we cannot be using solar energy 100 percent within 50 years."

The concept appears to be simple and straightforward; lot more work to advance the chemistry of semiconductor is needed to achieve the objective

K.S.Parthasarathy

EurekAlert! Public release date: 17-Jun-2010


Contact: Dr. Xiaoyang Zhu
zhu@cm.utexas.edu
512-471-9914
University of Texas at Austin
Highly efficient solar cells could result from quantum dot research






IMAGE: Xiaoyang Zhu and colleagues discovered that hot electrons can be transferred from photo-excited lead selenide nanocrystals to an electron conductor made of titanium dioxide. Their discovery points the way toward...
Click here for more information.




AUSTIN, Texas—Conventional solar cell efficiency could be increased from the current limit of 30 percent to more than 60 percent, suggests new research on semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.

Zhu and his colleagues report their results in this week's Science.

The scientists have discovered a method to capture the higher energy sunlight that is lost as heat in conventional solar cells.

The maximum efficiency of the silicon solar cell in use today is about 31 percent. That's because much of the energy from sunlight hitting a solar cell is too high to be turned into usable electricity. That energy, in the form of so-called "hot electrons," is lost as heat.

If the higher energy sunlight, or more specifically the hot electrons, could be captured, solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency could be increased theoretically to as high as 66 percent.

"There are a few steps needed to create what I call this 'ultimate solar cell,'" says Zhu, professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Materials Chemistry. "First, the cooling rate of hot electrons needs to be slowed down. Second, we need to be able to grab those hot electrons and use them quickly before they lose all of their energy."

Zhu says that semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, are promising for these purposes.

As for the first problem, a number of research groups have suggested that cooling of hot electrons can be slowed down in semiconductor nanocrystals. In a 2008 paper in Science, a research group from the University of Chicago showed this to be true unambiguously for colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals.

Zhu's team has now figured out the next critical step: how to take those electrons out.

They discovered that hot electrons can be transferred from photo-excited lead selenide nanocrystals to an electron conductor made of widely used titanium dioxide.

"If we take the hot electrons out, we can do work with them," says Zhu. "The demonstration of this hot electron transfer establishes that a highly efficient hot carrier solar cell is not just a theoretical concept, but an experimental possibility."

The researchers used quantum dots made of lead selenide, but Zhu says that their methods will work for quantum dots made of other materials, too.

He cautions that this is just one scientific step, and that more science and a lot of engineering need to be done before the world sees a 66 percent efficient solar cell.

In particular, there's a third piece of the science puzzle that Zhu is working on: connecting to an electrical conducting wire.

"If we take out electrons from the solar cell that are this fast, or hot, we also lose energy in the wire as heat," says Zhu. "Our next goal is to adjust the chemistry at the interface to the conducting wire so that we can minimize this additional energy loss. We want to capture most of the energy of sunlight. That's the ultimate solar cell.

"Fossil fuels come at a great environmental cost," says Zhu. "There is no reason that we cannot be using solar energy 100 percent within 50 years."

###

Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. Coauthors include William Tisdale, Brooke Timp, David Norris and Eray Aydil from the University of Minnesota, and Kenrick Williams from The University of Texas at Austin.

Media contact: Lee Clippard, public affairs, 512-232-0675, lclippard@mail.utexas.edu

EurekAlert! ]

Nottingham research leads to blood test for early detection of cancer

Public release date: 1-Jun-2010

Contact: Lindsay Brooke
lindsay.brooke@nottingham.ac.uk
44-115-951-5751
University of Nottingham
Nottingham research leads to blood test for early detection of cancer

The University of Nottingham spin-out company, Oncimmune Ltd, has developed a ground breaking blood test which will aid the detection of cancer as much as five years earlier than current testing methods such as mammography and CT scans. Physicians will know the result of their patient's test within one week of sending in a blood sample to Oncimmune.

Oncimmune has developed a new technique which replicates the cancer proteins that trigger the body's response to the disease and robotic technology to measure this response. This new technology (immuno-biomarkers) provides a significant advance in how early a cancer may be detected and is likely to change the current paradigm of diagnosis and treatment for most solid cancers such as lung, breast, ovarian, colon and prostate.

Based on the early work of John Robertson, a world renowned breast cancer specialist and Professor of Surgery in The University of Nottingham's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Oncimmune has successfully transferred this science into a reproducible commercial test. The test for lung cancer, EarlyCDT-Lung™ will be launched nationally in the USA this month followed by a launch in the UK early next year.

Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley, Executive Chairman of Oncimmune, said: "We believe this test, along with the others we will launch in the next few years, will lead to a better prognosis for a significant number of cancer sufferers."

Initial research results were derived using blood samples from patients with breast cancer and a group of high risk women attending for annual mammography — which Professor Robertson had prospectively collected in Nottingham. All samples were obtained with fully informed consent as part of a study which had received approval from the appropriate ethics committee. In addition to identifying the signal in the blood of a percentage of women when they developed breast cancer the results also showed that the signal could be detected in some of the high-risk patients who had given blood samples for a number of years during their annual check up and before they were subsequently diagnosed with cancer. When these samples were run retrospectively by Professor Robertson he showed that the prototype assay test could have detected over half of these cancers up to four years before they were actually diagnosed. The work on lung cancer followed through a European Union grant which involved both The University of Nottingham and Oncimmune in a collaboration with a number of European partners.

Professor John Robertson said "I am very pleased that the initial exciting research data that we produced in the laboratories at The University of Nottingham a number of years ago have been translated by Oncimmune to the first of many tests that will help us identify cancer early. The support of the University at all levels, including past and present Vice-Chancellors, Deans of the Faculty of Medicine and Heads of School along with the University's Management Board has been essential. Some of the initial research work was supported by charitable funds and donations from patient groups. In the commercialisation of the technology there have been a number of individuals who have continued to believe in and financially support the goal of developing a blood test for the early detection of cancer without whom this technology would not have reached this milestone. It has been a long and at times very hard road in creating a robust commercial test and those involved have worked with exceptional diligence and tenacity and have given their unremitting support to achieve this."

A study involving researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the USA recorded similar results using blood samples from a study of CT scans to screen for lung cancer where antibodies were detected up to five years before the lung cancers were diagnosed. A number of other academic centres have reported similar results.

Oncimmune LTD was founded in 2003 to commercialise the technology developed in the laboratories of Professor Robertson. In 2006 the company set up a North American operation to validate and scale-up the test — trialling it on more than eight million assay "wells" from 80,000 patient samples.

The first early cancer detection test (EarlyCDT™) to launch will be the test for lung cancer (EarlyCDT-Lung) which has the potential to detect the early stages of lung cancer possibly up to five years before a tumour appears. The target population for this test are high-risk individuals such as long-term smokers and ex-smokers between the ages of 40 and 75. Additionally the test would be appropriate for people who have been exposed to other risk factors associated with the disease, for instance, environmental exposures such as radon, asbestos and extensive exposure to secondary smoke.

Under the guidance of Professor Robertson, The University of Nottingham has become a world leader in the field of autoimmunity in cancer. Using the technology developed by Oncimmune there is, for the first time, a reliable platform available for testing the autoimmune response to cancer and further research will allow validation of the test in other tumour areas such as lung, colon and ovarian cancer.

To support this, the University is to establish a Centre of Excellence for Autoimmunity in Cancer (CEAC) with Professor Robertson as the Director of Research. The new centre will foster collaborative research to: speed up the delivery of an autoantibody blood test for different types of cancer for clinical use; encourage other research in the area of autoimmunity in cancer; and continue the search for support technologies that have the potential to enhance the medical prognosis following a positive test result.

Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham said: "The establishment of CEAC will provide state-of-the-art technologies to continue world leading research and development in the early detection of cancer using autoantibodies. The new centre will house a multi disciplinary research team working in partnership with international collaborators and Oncimmune. The research will provide additional test systems for the early diagnosis of a wide range of cancers which will have considerable impact within clinical medicine. The group's discovery science which has led to a novel set of biomarkers is providing new insights into the biology of cancer. Their basic, translational and clinical research is likely to contribute to a positive paradigm shift in our understanding of the early phases of cancer cell development as well as enhancement of the medical management of a wide range of cancer types."

Initially the test will be offered via primary care physicians and pulmonologists in the USA for high risk asymptomatic patients as well as patients who have indeterminate lung nodules. Oncimmune will bill private insurance companies as well as government-run Medicare Part B carriers on behalf of the patient.

###

More information can be found at: www.oncimmune.co.uk or www.oncimmune.com

Tracing bees using radiotransmitters

Public release date: 26-May-2010
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

Contact: Jen Laloup
jlaloup@plos.org
415-624-1220
Public Library of Science

Researchers learn about role of bees in tropical ecosystems using radio transmitters
A New York State Museum scientist is one of several researchers who have become the first to use tiny radio transmitters to track bees over long distances in a forest habitat, yielding new insight into the role of bees in tropical forest ecosystems. The bee study research conducted by Dr. Roland Kays, the Museum's curator of mammals, and the other scientists, was published in the online peer reviewed journal PLoS ONE on May 26th.

Armed with radio antennas, Kays and the other researchers worked at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama City, Panama, to track unique signals from tiny transmitters glued to individual orchid bees. Although radar had been used to track bees in open areas, this is the first time it has been used in forested habitats. The research opens the door to future studies of bees in temperate forests, such as those in New York State.

Bees are important pollinators for plants worldwide. Pollination is critical for trees to make fruits and seeds, including domesticated edible fruits, as well as inedible species that are found in most New York State forest habitats. However, little is known about the movement of bees because they are so small and difficult to track.

Researchers, using helicopters, discovered that the orchid bees traveled surprisingly long distances, zipping through increasingly scarce patches of tropical forest as they moved pollen between rare flowers that grew miles apart.

"People disrupt plant pollination as they disturb and destroy tropical forests," said David Roubik, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian. "Radio-tracking significantly improves our understanding of bees and the plants they pollinate. Now we can track orchid bees to get at the distances and spatial patterns involved—vital details which have completely eluded researchers in the past."

The researchers chose 17 iridescent blue-green orchid bees called Exaerete frontalis -- fairly common in the forest. They are larger than New York state honeybees but similar to some of the state's other large bumble bees. Roubik determined that Panama's orchid bees weigh only 0.6 grams without nectar in their stomachs.

"These bees easily carry a 300 mg radio transmitter glued on their backs," said Martin Wikelski, co-author of the research paper and director of the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology, professor at Princeton University and Smithsoian research associate. "By following the radio signals, we discovered that male orchid bees spent most of their time in small core areas, but could take off and visit areas farther away. One male even crossed over the shipping lanes in the Panama Canal, flying at least five kilometres, and returned a few days later."

In the past, researchers have struggled to determine the distances that bees travel, following individuals marked with paint between baits, or using radar, which doesn't work well when trees are in the way. "Carrying the transmitter could reduce the distance that the bees travel, but even if the flight distances we record are the minimum distances that these orchid bees can fly, they are impressive, long-distance movements," said Kays, who is also a research associate at STRI. "These data help to explain how orchids these bees pollinate can be so rare."

###
STRI, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Museum and the National Geographic Society provided support for the bee study. Other co-authors are affiliated with the University of Arizona, Tucson; Cornell University and EcolSciences, Inc. In addition to hand tracking bees, Wikelski, Kays and colleagues have set up the Automated Radio Telemetry System on Barro Colorado Island (IS THIS IN PANAMA). The system is available to interested researchers and is capable of tracking up to 200 different animals, 24 hours a day, at any given time. A unit of the Smithsonian Institution, STRI furthers the understanding of tropical nature and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. More information is available at www.stri.org.

Citation: Wikelski M, Moxley J, Eaton-Mordas A, Lo´ pez-Uribe MM, Holland R, et al. (2010) Large-Range Movements of Neotropical Orchid Bees Observed via Radio Telemetry. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10738. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010738

Funding: The study was supported by the US Environmental Protection Agency, New York State Museum, EcolSciences, Inc., Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the National Geographic Society. EcolSciences, as the only commercial company among the funding organizations, had a role in the analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript through the involvment of David Moskowitz.

Competing Interests: David Moskowitz is employed by EcolSciences, who is a funder of this research. The employment of this author in a commercial company does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Contact:
Joanne Guilmette
Jguilmet@mail.nysed.gov
518/474-8730

PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010738

Disclaimer

This title and abstract release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.

About PLoS ONE

PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

New pathway to cheap insulin

This paper deserves wide publicity as it reveals a cheaper method of making insulin

K.S.Parthasarathy



Public release date: 26-May-2010
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

Contact: Bastian Dornbach
bastian.dornbach@helmholtz-hzi.de
49-053-161-811-407
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

New pathway to cheap insulin
Researchers from Helmholtz Centre in Braunschweig, Germany, publish new and more efficient method to manufacture insulin
More than eight million diabetics live in Germany. Diabetes is not restricted to our prosperous society and the highest growth rates often occur in countries with aspiring economies such as in Asia. Worldwide, more than 285 million people suffer from this illness; with 50 million diabetics, India is the country with the most people affected by this disease. In Europe, Germany shows the highest prevalence in the population with twelve percent. In a German-Indo collaboration, researchers from the Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany have now developed a new method to cheaply produce insulin for the treatment of diabetes. The group's results have now been published in the open access online research magazine Microbial Cell Factories. With this, all information is freely accessible for everyone and is not subject to patent law.

"As we did last year with an alternative protocol for the development of a hepatitis B vaccine, we again decided to use this way and make our knowledge available for everybody," says Ursula Rinas from the HZI, who chairs the German side of the project. Thus, people can access "insider-information" that makes it possible to cheaply produce medicine which in return can be affordable to people in developing countries.

The researchers wanted to develop a new procedure to increase the yield of an insulin precursor from which the actual insulin can be obtained, and in this way reduce costs. They found the yeast Pichia pastoris and modified the cells so that they produce the building block for insulin while growing on a special medium. The results were highly gratifying: "With our procedure, Pichia pastoris delivers high yields – twice as much as known before", says Ursula Rinas. "Already with few cells it is possible to produce a lot of the insulin precursor."

In the early 1980s, insulin was the first recombinant product approved by the FDA for human application. Today, human insulin is produced as recombinant protein, using two major routes. One route involves the production of the insulin precursor using the bacterium Escherichia coli as expression host with complex subsequent isolation, solubilization and refolding procedures. The other route involves the well-known baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The advantage of the latter route lies in the secretion of a soluble insulin precursor into the culture supernatant, making it easier for isolation and chemical modification. The newly described method from Ursula Rinas and her group also uses this route. The isolation of the precursor from the culture supernatant is only followed by enzymatic finishing. Insulin produced with this new method can be used normally and is identical to human insulin. Currently, the researchers are working on a method to produce a vaccine against dengue fever using the same system as described here.

For most people in developing countries medicine is too expensive. The purchasing of insulin in those countries is often cost prohibitive. Another problem is patent law that makes it impossible to recreate medicine and sell it at low prices. Once a patent has expired, as is the case with insulin, the so called generic drugs can be produced cheaply. Unfortunately, emerging nations very often lack the insider knowledge to produce those generics.


###

Original article: Application of simple fed-batch technique to high-level secretory production of insulin precursor using Pichia pastoris with subsequent purification and conversion to human insulin. Gurramkonda C, Polez S, Skoko N, Adnan A, Gabel T, Chugh D, Swaminathan S, Khanna N, Tisminetzky S, Rinas U. Microb Cell Fact. 2010 May 12;9(1):31. [Epub ahead of print]





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

Lowly termite, not the lion or elephant, may be the star of Africa's savanna

It is an interesting observation. Termites are more important to the ecosystem that huge animals
K S Parthasarathy





Lowly termite, not the lion or elephant, may be the star of Africa's savanna

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- The majestic animals most closely associated with the African savanna -- fierce lions, massive elephants, towering giraffes – may be relatively minor players when it comes to shaping the ecosystem.

The king of the savanna appears to be the termite, say ecologists who've found that these humble creatures contribute mightily to grassland productivity in central Kenya via a network of uniformly distributed colonies. Termite mounds greatly enhance plant and animal activity at the local level, while their even distribution over a larger area maximizes ecosystem-wide productivity.

The finding, published this week in the journal PLoS Biology, affirms a counterintuitive approach to population ecology: Often, it's the small things that matter most.

"One of the kind of typical things I think that people think about is, what drives a savanna in terms of its structure and function?" said Todd Palmer, one of the paper's authors and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Florida."We think about big animals, but these termites are having a massive impact on the system from below."

Said Robert M. Pringle, a research fellow at Harvard University and the lead author, "As (famed biologist) E.O. Wilson likes to point out, in many respects it's the little things that run the world."

Prior research on the Kenya dwarf gecko initially drew Pringle's attention to the peculiar role of grassy termite mounds, which in this part of Kenya are some 30 feet in diameter and spaced some 180 to 300 feet apart. Each mound teems with millions of termites, who build the mounds over the course of centuries.

After observing unexpectedly high numbers of lizards in the vicinity of mounds, Pringle, Palmer and their colleagues began to quantify ecological productivity relative to mound density. They found that each mound supported dense aggregations of flora and fauna: Plants grew more rapidly the closer they were to mounds, and animal populations and reproductive rates fell off appreciably with greater distance.

What was observed on the ground was even clearer in satellite imagery. Each mound – relatively inconspicuous on the Kenyan grassland – stood at the center of a burst of floral productivity. More important, these bursts were highly organized in relation to one another, evenly dispersed as if squares on a checkerboard. The result is an optimized network of plant and animal output closely tied to the ordered distribution of termite mounds.

"In essence, the highly regular spatial pattern of fertile mounds generated by termites actually increases overall levels of ecosystem production. And it does so in such a profound way," Palmer said. "Seen from above, the grid-work of termite mounds in the savanna is not just a pretty picture. The over-dispersion, or regular distribution of these termite mounds, plays an important role in elevating the services this ecosystem provides."

The mechanism through which termite activity is transformed into far-reaching effects on the ecosystem is a complex one. Pringle and Palmer suspect termites import coarse particles into the otherwise fine soil in the vicinity of their mounds. These coarser particles promote water infiltration of the soil, even as they discourage disruptive shrinking and swelling of topsoil in response to precipitation or drought.

The mounds also show elevated levels of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen. All this beneficial soil alteration appears to directly and indirectly mold ecosystem services far beyond the immediate vicinity of the mound.

While further studies will explore the mechanism through which these spatial patterns of termite mounds emerge, Pringle and Palmer suggest that the present work has implications beyond the basic questions of ecology.

"Termites are typically viewed as pests, and as threats to agricultural and livestock production," Pringle said. "But productivity – of both wild and human-dominated landscapes – may be more intricately tied to the pattern-generating organisms of the larger natural landscape than is commonly understood."

###

Pringle and Palmer's co-authors on the PLoS Biology paper are Daniel F. Doak of the Mpala Research Centre and the University of Wyoming; Alison K. Brody of the Mpala Research Centre and the University of Vermont; and Rudy Jocqué of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. Their work was supported by the Sherwood Family Foundation and the National Science Foundation.