Labslink Research News

New material approach should increase solar cell efficiency

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:08:11 PDT

When designing next generation solar energy conversion systems, we must first develop ways to more efficiently utilize the solar spectrum,” explained Lane Martin, whose research group has done just that.......> Full story

Scientists map all possible drug-like chemical compounds

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:44:29 PDT

Drug developers may have a new tool to search for more effective medications and new materials. It's a computer algorithm that can model and catalogue the entire set of lightweight, carbon-containing molecules that chemists could feasibly create in a lab.......> Full story

A new method for measuring the flow of traffic a street has to bear by measuring atmospheric noise

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:05:44 PDT

Researchers from the University of Granada and the Carlos III University of Madrid have patented a new method to measure the flow of motorized traffic that a specific street carries each day, by measuring solely the levels of atmospheric noise. This pioneer system, unique in the world, is an alternative, or a complement, to other methods currently used to measure traffic flow, such as image counting or magnetic discharge levels.......> Full story

Molecules assemble in water, hint at origins of life

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:39:49 PDT

The base pairs that hold together two pieces of RNA, the older cousin of DNA, are some of the most important molecular interactions in living cells. Many scientists believe that these base pairs were part of life from the very beginning and that RNA was one of the first polymers.......> Full story

Beer's bitter compounds could help brew new medicines

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:14:37 PDT

Researchers employing a century-old observational technique have determined the precise configuration of humulones, substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor.......> Full story

Clean air: New paints break down nitrogen oxides

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:56:34 PDT

The Seventies: Smog alert in the Ruhr area, acid rain, dying spruce trees in the Bavarian Forest. In those days, the solution was filter systems for the smokestacks in the Ruhr area. Today, people in the urban areas are suffering from high levels of pollution that is being caused by, among other things, automotive traffic.........> Full story

Measuring mercury levels: Nano-velcro detects water-borne toxic metals

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:30:49 PDT

A strip of glass covered in hairy nanoparticles can cheaply and conveniently measure mercury, which attacks the nervous system, and other toxic metals in fluids........> Full story

Researchers develop new, less expensive nanolithography technique

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:25:45 PDT

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new nanolithography technique that is less expensive than other approaches and can be used to create technologies with biomedical applications.......> Full story

Touch of gold improves nanoparticle fuel-cell reactions

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:23:59 PDT

Advances in fuel-cell technology have been stymied by the inadequacy of metals studied as catalysts. The drawback to platinum, other than cost, is that it absorbs carbon monoxide in reactions involving fuel cells powered by organic materials like formic acid. A more recently tested metal, palladium, breaks down over time.......> Full story

Environmentally friendly cleaning and washing

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:30:52 PDT

Detergents are everywhere – in washing powders, dishwashing liquids, household cleaners, skin creams, shower gels, and shampoos. It is the detergent that loosens dirt and fat, makes hair-washing products foam up and allows creams to be absorbed quickly. Up until now, most detergents are manufactured from crude oil – a fossil fuel of which there is only a limited supply........> Full story

UMass Amherst chemical engineers say 'mini-cellulose' molecule unlocks biofuel chemistry

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:35:16 PDT

A team of chemical engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a small molecule that behaves the same as cellulose when it is converted to biofuel. Studying this ‘mini-cellulose’ molecule reveals for the first time the chemical reactions that take place in wood and prairie grasses during high-temperature conversion to biofuel. The new technical discovery was reported in the January 2012 issue of the journal Energy & Environmental Science and highlighted in Nature Chemistry.......> Full story

Carbon dioxide is 'driving fish crazy'

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:06:39 PDT

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.......> Full story

New report reviews US nitrogen pollution impacts and solutions

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:10:36 PDT

The nitrogen cycle has been profoundly altered by human activities, and that in turn is affecting human health, air and water quality, and biodiversity in the U.S., according to a multi-disciplinary team of scientists writing in the 15th publication of the Ecological Society of America’s Issues in Ecology. In “Excess Nitrogen in the U.S. Environment: Trends, Risks, and Solutions,” lead author Eric Davidson.......> Full story

Optical nanoantennas enable efficient multipurpose particle manipulation

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:07:45 PDT

University of Illinois researchers have shown that by tuning the properties of laser light illuminating arrays of metal nanoantennas, these nano-scale structures allow for dexterous optical tweezing as well as size-sorting of particles........> Full story

MIT research: A new sunflower-inspired pattern increases concentrated solar efficiency

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:54:07 PDT

Just outside Seville, in the desert region of Andalucia, Spain, sits an oasis-like sight: a 100-meter-high pillar surrounded by rows of giant mirrors rippling outward. More than 600 of these mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, track the sun throughout the day, concentrating its rays on the central tower, where the sun’s heat is converted to electricity — enough to power 6,000 homes........> Full story

Fewer animal experiments thanks to nanosensors

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:28:29 PDT

Countless mice, rats and rabbits die every year in the name of science – and the situation is getting worse. While German laboratories used some 2.41 million animals for scientific research in 2005, by 2009 this number had grown to 2.79 million. One third were destined for fundamental biology research,......> Full story

Debris scatters in the Pacific Ocean, possibly heading to US

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:27:57 PDT

The powerful Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami in March, 2011, washed untold tons of marine debris into the Pacific Ocean. Carey Morishige, Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program........> Full story

Forest health versus global warming: Fuel reduction likely to increase carbon emissions

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:26:36 PDT

Forest thinning to help prevent or reduce severe wildfire will release more carbon to the atmosphere than any amount saved by successful fire prevention, a new study concludes........> Full story

Lead levels in drinking water spike when copper and lead pipes joined

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:26:45 PDT

Lead pipes once used routinely in municipal water distribution systems are a well-recognized source of dangerous lead contamination, but new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that the partial replacement of these pipes can make the problem worse.......> Full story

Novel device removes heavy metals from water

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:18:39 PDT

An unfortunate consequence of many industrial and manufacturing practices, from textile factories to metalworking operations, is the release of heavy metals in waterways. Those metals can remain for decades, even centuries, in low but still dangerous concentrations.......> Full story

Nanowrinkles, nanofolds yield strange hidden channels

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:02:39 PDT

Wrinkles and folds are ubiquitous. They occur in furrowed brows, planetary topology, the surface of the human brain, even the bottom of a gecko's foot. In many cases, they are nature's ingenious way of packing more surface area into a limited space. Scientists, mimicking nature, have long sought to manipulate surfaces to create wrinkles and folds to make smaller, more flexible electronic devices, fluid-carrying nanochannels or even printable cell phones and computers.......> Full story

A better way to count molecules discovered

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:44:42 PDT

Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method for counting molecules. Quantifying the amounts of different kinds of RNA and DNA molecules is a fundamental task in molecular biology as these molecules store and transfer the genetic information in cells. Thus, improved measurement techniques are crucial for understanding both normal and cancer cells........> Full story

Tales from the crypt

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:45:05 PDT

The lining of the intestine regenerates itself every few days as compared to say red blood cells that turn over every four months. The cells that help to absorb food and liquid that humans consume are constantly being produced. The various cell types that do this come from stem cells that reside deep in the inner recesses of the accordion-like folds of the intestines, called villi and crypts.......> Full story

Carbon monoxide -- the silent calmer?

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:34:28 PDT

According to scientists, carbon monoxide (CO), a tasteless, colorless and odorless gas, is not only a danger to the environment but also highly toxic to human beings. Found in the exhaust of vehicles and generators, CO has been dubbed the "silent killer" because excessive inhalation is lethal, poisoning the nervous system and heart.......> Full story

Berkeley Lab researchers ink nanostructures with tiny 'soldering iron'

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:52:47 PDT

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shed light on the role of temperature in controlling a fabrication technique for drawing chemical patterns as small as 20 nanometers. This technique could provide an inexpensive, fast route to growing and patterning a wide variety of materials on surfaces to build electrical circuits and chemical sensors, or study how pharmaceuticals bind to proteins and viruses........> Full story

A new set of building blocks for simple synthesis of complex molecules

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:45:01 PDT

Assembling chemicals can be like putting together a puzzle. University of Illinois chemists have developed a way of fitting the pieces together to more efficiently build complex molecules, beginning with a powerful and promising antioxidant.......> Full story

Small molecules shed light on cancer therapies

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:22:55 PDT

Patients suffering from an aggressive brain cancer will benefit from the results of a University of Illinois study that could advance the development of targeted gene therapies and improve prognosis. "We have advanced the understanding of the role of microRNAs on glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly brain cancer, by studying the networks between the microRNAs and their target genes associated with different stages of cancer development and progression," said Kristin Delfino, a U of I doctoral candidate in animal science with a focus in genetics and bioinformatics. What exactly are microRNAs? microRNAs are small, non-coding RNA molecules that regulate the expression of genes such as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. U of I researchers used a novel approach to identify the simultaneous association between tens of thousands of microRNAs, target genes, and glioblastoma progression and survival. Delfino integrated clinical information such as race, gender, therapy, survival, and cancer stage from 253 patients together with genome-wide microRNA and gene expression data. "We looked at the big picture and how microRNAs work together," Delfino said. "When you look at a single microRNA alone, it can seem significant. But when you evaluate it in the context of all other microRNAs, some turn out to be more significant and others may not be as significant as they appear on their own. The systems biology approach that we implemented is critical for understanding the gene pathways influencing cancer." The study evaluated 534 microRNAs together, unlike the typical method of studying one at a time. They confirmed 25 microRNAs previously associated with glioblastoma survival and identified 20 other microRNAs associated with initiation or growth of other cancer types such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer and gastric adenocarcinoma. "These findings suggest common pathways that can be targeted with similar drugs already developed and tested for other cancers," said Sandra Rodriguez Zas, co-researcher and U of I professor of animal science and bioinformatics. In addition, researchers found that some of the microRNA biomarkers of survival are personalized, Rodriguez Zas said. This means that they are particularly useful for patients of a specific race, gender or therapy. Other microRNAs are equally effective regardless of the clinical conditions of the patient. "These biomarkers can serve as the basis to dig deeper into cancer studies," Delfino said. "Cancer affects us all in one way or another. Unfortunately, we still don't know how it's caused, what takes place when it is caused and how to cure it. But these biomarkers give us guidance into developing specific gene therapies to target glioblastoma." Today patients can easily and cheaply be screened for microRNA and target gene levels, Rodriguez Zas said. "Based on our research, that information can be used to select the most effective therapy and develop prognosis strategies," Rodriguez-Zas said.

Researchers find way to align gold nanorods on a large scale

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:42:40 PDT

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a simple, scalable way to align gold nanorods, particles with optical properties that could be used for emerging biomedical imaging technologies. Aligning gold nanorods is important because they respond to light differently, depending on the direction in which the nanorods are pointed. To control the optical response of the nanorods, researchers want to ensure that all of the nanorods are aligned........> Full story

Scientists find easier, cheaper way to make a sought-after chemical modification to drugs

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:24:58 PDT

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have devised a much easier technique for performing a chemical modification used widely in the synthesis of drugs and other products. Known as "trifluoromethylation," the modification adds a CF3 molecule to the original compound, often making it more stable—and, for a drug, keeping it in the body longer. With the new technique, chemists can perform this feat using a relatively simple, safe, room-temperature procedure and can even select the site of the modification on the target compound. "I've been presenting this methodology at several pharma companies, and there's a lot of interest—so much so that their chemists are starting to use it," said Scripps Research Professor Phil S. Baran, senior author of the new study, scheduled for publication the week of August 15, 2011, in an advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Standard procedures for trifluoromethylation involve gases and associated hardware, high heat, metal catalysts, and oxidants. "The procedures are often prohibitively complicated, and medicinal chemists often don't have the time or the resources to get into it," said Baran. Inspired by frequent consulting visits to pharmaceutical companies, Baran and his lab began to look for simpler ways to perform trifluoromethylation. After running more than 500 different reaction setups on a test compound, they found just one that delivered significant quantities of the desired reaction product. It was a simple setup that used a reagent known as sodium trifluoromethanesulfinate, an inexpensive chemical that is stable at room temperature. Chemists had long believed that this reagent was unsuitable for trifluoromethylating a broad class of molecules frequently found in drug compounds, and also that the reagent required the use of catalyzing metal salts. But in this initial screening, the reagent, known as Langlois's reagent for its discoverer, the French chemist Bernard R. Langlois, seemed to work even without such constraints. Baran and his team began collaborating with fellow Scripps Research chemistry Professor Donna Blackmond and members of her laboratory to study how Langlois's reagent works and to optimize its use, including the selection of trifluoromethylation sites on target compounds using certain solvents. With the optimized technique, they showed that they could directly and easily trifluoromethylate a variety of test compounds, including the natural malaria drug quinine and the synthetic anti-smoking drug varenicline (Chantix). "The collaboration with Donna Blackmond and her lab was crucial in enabling us to improve the procedure and to understand why certain modifications led to those improvements," said Baran. The new technique in principle makes it more feasible for pharmaceutical companies to modify and improve specific drug compounds of interest. It also means that these companies can expand the existing compound libraries they use for drug-discovery screening by making trifluoromethylated versions of these compounds quickly and easily. "In one instance, a chemist at Pfizer told me that the trifluoromethylated compound we made in one step with our technique would have taken at least eight steps using standard techniques," said Baran. The Baran and Blackmond labs are now working on new reagents that may be used in this reaction and ways to enable fine control of trifluoromethylation sites. "The interplay of the two labs at the nexus of synthesis and mechanistic analysis is driving this project forward in new and exciting directions," Baran said.

Natural chemical found in grapes may protect against Alzheimer's disease

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:38:14 PDT

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that grape seed polyphenols—a natural antioxidant—may help prevent the development or delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The research, led by Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, The Saunder Family Professor in Neurology, and Professor of Psychiatry and Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was published online in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. This is the first study to evaluate the ability of grape-derived polyphenols to prevent the generation of a specific form of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide, a substance in the brain long known to cause the neurotoxicity associated with Alzheimer disease. In partnership with a team at the University of Minnesota led by Karen Hsiao Ashe, MD, PhD, Dr. Pasinetti and his collaborators administered grape seed polyphenolic extracts to mice genetically determined to develop memory deficits and Aβ neurotoxins similar to those found in Alzheimer's disease. They found that the brain content of the Aβ*56, a specific form of Aβ previously implicated in the promotion of Alzheimer's disease memory loss, was substantially reduced after treatment. Previous studies suggest that increased consumption of grape-derived polyphenols, whose content, for example, is very high in red wine, may protect against cognitive decline in Alzheimer's. This new finding, showing a selective decrease in the neurotoxin Aβ*56 following grape-derived polyphenols treatment, corroborates those theories. "Since naturally occurring polyphenols are also generally commercially available as nutritional supplements and have negligible adverse events even after prolonged periods of treatment, this new finding holds significant promise as a preventive method or treatment, and is being tested in translational studies in Alzheimer's disease patients," said Dr. Pasinetti. The study authors emphasize that in order for grape-derived polyphenols to be effective, scientists need to identify a biomarker of disease that would pinpoint who is at high risk to develop Alzheimer's disease. "It will be critical to identify subjects who are at high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, so that we can initiate treatments very early and possibly even in asymptomatic patients," said Dr. Pasinetti. "However, for Alzheimer's disease patients who have already progressed into the initial stages of the disease, early intervention with this treatment might be beneficial as well. Our study implicating that these neurotoxins such as Aβ*56 in the brain are targeted by grape-derived polyphenols holds significant promise." This research was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Giulio Pasinetti is a named inventor of a pending patent application filed by Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) related to the study of Alzheimer's disease. In the event the pending or issued patent is licensed, Dr. Pasinetti would be entitled to a share of any proceeds MSSM receives from the licensee.

Treatment approach to human Usher syndrome: Small molecules ignore stop signals

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:35:44 PDT

Usher syndrome is the most common form of combined congenital deaf-blindness in humans and affects 1 in 6,000 of the population. It is a recessive inherited disease that is both clinically and genetically heterogeneous. In the most severe cases, patients are born deaf and begin to suffer from a degeneration of the retina in puberty, ultimately resulting in complete blindness. These patients experience major problems in their day-to-day life. While hearing loss can be compensated for with hearing aids and cochlea implants, it has not proven possible to develop a treatment for the associated sight loss to date. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany have now developed a new treatment approach to this disease.......> Full story

NIST 'catch and release' program could improve nanoparticle safety assessment

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:31:53 PDT

Depending on whom you ask, nanoparticles are, potentially, either one of the most promising or the most perilous creations of science. These tiny objects can deliver drugs efficiently and enhance the properties of many materials, but what if they also are hazardous to your health in some way? Now, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found* a way to manipulate nanoparticles so that questions like this can be answered. The team has developed a method of attracting and capturing metal-based nanoparticles on a surface and releasing them at the desired moment. The method, which uses a mild electric current to influence the particles' behavior, could allow scientists to expose cell cultures to nanoparticles so that any lurking hazards they might cause to living cells can be assessed effectively. The method also has the advantage of collecting the particles in a layer only one particle thick, which allows them to be evenly dispersed into a fluid sample, thereby reducing clumping—a common problem that can mask the properties they exhibit when they encounter living tissue. According to NIST physicist Darwin Reyes, these combined advantages should make the new method especially useful in toxicology studies. "Many other methods of trapping require that you modify the surface of the nanoparticles in some way so that you can control them more easily," Reyes says. "We take nanoparticles as they are, so that you can explore what you've actually got. Using this method, you can release them into a cell culture and watch how the cells react, which can give you a better idea of how cells in the body will respond." Other means of studying nanoparticle toxicity do not enable such precise delivery of the particles to the cells. In the NIST method, the particles can be released in a controlled fashion into a fluid stream that flows over a colony of cells, mimicking the way the particles would encounter cells inside the body—allowing scientists to monitor how cells react over time, for example, or whether responses vary with changes in particle concentration. For this particular study, the team used a gold surface covered by long, positively charged molecules, which stretch up from the gold like wheat in a field. The nanoparticles, which are also made of gold, are coated with citrate molecules that have a slight negative charge, which draws them to the surface covering, an attraction that can be broken with a slight electric current. Reyes says that because the surface covering can be designed to attract different materials, a variety of nanoparticles could be captured and released with the technique.

Hitting target in cancer fight now easier with new nanoparticle platform, UCLA scientists say

Wed, 04 May 2011 19:53:35 PDT

The ability to use nanoparticles to deliver payloads of cancer-fighting drugs to tumors in the body could herald a fundamental change in chemotherapy treatment. But scientists are still at a relatively early stage in the implementation of this technology. Although developing nanoparticles that work as "magic bullets" — selectively targeting tumors while sparing normal, healthy tissues — is still the goal, the reality is that most of these nanocarriers are removed through the liver and spleen before ever reaching their intended target. And many of the encapsulated drugs can be lost while the carriers circulate in the blood or degraded on the way to tumors. In a study recently published in the journal ACS Nano, UCLA scientists report that by using engineered mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs) as delivery vehicles, they were able to achieve significant increases in the percentage of drug-carrying nanoparticles that reach and are retained at tumor sites. The MSNP platform allows for the introduction of multiple and customized design features that can help optimize the delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to a variety of cancer types, said the researchers, led by Dr. Andre Nel, a professor of medicine, pediatrics and public health and chief of the nanomedicine division in the UCLA Department of Medicine, and Jeffrey Zink, a professor in the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Nel and Zink are also members of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. A key challenge in enhancing drug delivery has been improving nanocarriers' access to tumors by capitalizing on features like the leakiness of abnormal tumor blood vessels, which allows nanoparticles to slip through and be retained at tumor sites. To achieve that, particles must be designed to be the ideal size, to remain in the blood stream long enough by temporarily evading the liver and spleen, and to stably bind the drug. The dynamic design features employed by the UCLA research team include the manipulation of the size and surface properties of the nanoparticle to improve tumor biodistribution and protected delivery. The study demonstrates how, through an iterative design process, the first-generation MSNP was redesigned and optimized to deliver doxorubicin to a cancer xenograft in a mouse model. The team demonstrated a significant increase in particle retention at the tumor site: Approximately 10 to 12 percent of all the drug-loaded particles injected intravenously reached the tumor site. This high tumor distribution is exceptionally good, compared with other polymer- and copolymer-based nanodelivery platforms for which the best passive tumor targeting is in the range of 3.5 to 10 percent of injected particles, the researchers said. The study also demonstrated efficient drug delivery and tumor cell–killing using the redesigned and optimized MSNP system in mice. "The amount of doxorubicin being delivered to the tumor site was considerably higher than what could be achieved by the free drug, in addition to allowing efficient delivery into the cancer cells at the tumor site," said Nel, who is also a member of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Moreover, the improved drug delivery was accompanied by a significant reduction in systemic side effects such as weight loss and reduced liver and renal injury. "This is an important demonstration of how the optimal design of the MSNP platform can achieve better drug delivery in vivo," Nel said. "This delivery platform allows effective and protective packaging of hydrophobic and charged anticancer drugs for controlled and on-demand delivery. Not only are these design features superior to induce tumor shrinkage and apoptosis compared to the free drug, but they also dramatically improve the safety profile of systemic doxorubicin delivery."

Researchers create functioning synapse using carbon nanotubes

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:07:21 PDT

Engineering researchers the University of Southern California have made a significant breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon nanotube synapse circuit whose behavior in tests reproduces the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain. The team, which was led by Professor Alice Parker and Professor Chongwu Zhou in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, used an interdisciplinary approach combining circuit design with nanotechnology to address the complex problem of capturing brain function. In a paper published in the proceedings of the IEEE/NIH 2011 Life Science Systems and Applications Workshop in April 2011, the Viterbi team detailed how they were able to use carbon nanotubes to create a synapse. Carbon nanotubes are molecular carbon structures that are extremely small, with a diameter a million times smaller than a pencil point. These nanotubes can be used in electronic circuits, acting as metallic conductors or semiconductors. "This is a necessary first step in the process," said Parker, who began the looking at the possibility of developing a synthetic brain in 2006. "We wanted to answer the question: Can you build a circuit that would act like a neuron? The next step is even more complex. How can we build structures out of these circuits that mimic the function of the brain, which has 100 billion neurons and 10,000 synapses per neuron?" Parker emphasized that the actual development of a synthetic brain, or even a functional brain area is decades away, and she said the next hurdle for the research centers on reproducing brain plasticity in the circuits. The human brain continually produces new neurons, makes new connections and adapts throughout life, and creating this process through analog circuits will be a monumental task, according to Parker. She believes the ongoing research of understanding the process of human intelligence could have long-term implications for everything from developing prosthetic nanotechnology that would heal traumatic brain injuries to developing intelligent, safe cars that would protect drivers in bold new ways. For Jonathan Joshi, a USC Viterbi Ph.D. student who is a co-author of the paper, the interdisciplinary approach to the problem was key to the initial progress. Joshi said that working with Zhou and his group of nanotechnology researchers provided the ideal dynamic of circuit technology and nanotechnology. "The interdisciplinary approach is the only approach that will lead to a solution. We need more than one type of engineer working on this solution," said Joshi. "We should constantly be in search of new technologies to solve this problem."

New laser technique opens doors for drug discovery

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:12:30 PDT

A new laser technique has demonstrated it can measure the interactions between proteins tangled in a cell’s membrane and a variety of other biological molecules. These extremely difficult measurements can aid the process of drug discovery. Scientists estimate that about 30 percent of the 7,000 proteins in a human cell reside in the cell’s membrane, and that these membrane proteins initiate 60 to 70 percent of the signals that control the operation of the cell’s molecular machinery. As a result, about half of the drugs currently on the market target membrane proteins......> Full story

MU chemist discovers shortcut for processing drugs

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:22:53 PDT

A prolific University of Missouri chemist has discovered a quicker and easier method for pharmaceutical companies to make certain drugs. erry Atwood, Curator’s Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry in the MU College of Arts and Science, has recently published a paper – his 663^rd in a refereed journal – that states that highly pressurized carbon dioxide at room temperature could replace the time consuming and expensive methods currently used to manufacture certain pharmaceutical drugs.......> Full story

Researcher lists more than 4,000 components of blood chemistry

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:23:59 PDT

After three years of exhaustive analysis led by a University of Alberta researcher, the list of known compounds in human blood has exploded from just a handful to more than 4,000. "Right now a medical doctor analyzing the blood of an ailing patient looks at something like 10 to 20 chemicals," said U of A biochemist David Wishart. "We've identified 4,229 blood chemicals that doctors can potentially look at to diagnose and treat health problems." Blood chemicals, or metabolites, are routinely analyzed by doctors to diagnose conditions like diabetes and kidney failure. Wishart says the new research opens up the possibility of diagnosing hundreds of other diseases that are characterized by an imbalance in blood chemistry. Wishart led more than 20 researchers at six different institutions using modern technology to validate past research, and the team also conducted its own lab experiments to break new ground on the content of human-blood chemistry. "This is the most complete chemical characterization of blood ever done," said Wishart. "We now know the normal values of all the detectable chemicals in blood. Doctors can use these measurements as a reference point for monitoring a patient's current and even future health." Wishart says blood chemicals are the "canary in the coal mine," for catching the first signs of an oncoming medical problem. "The blood chemistry is the first thing to change when a person is developing a dangerous condition like high cholesterol." The database created by Wishart and his team is open access, meaning anyone can log on and find the expanded list of blood chemicals. Wishart says doctors can now tap into the collected wisdom of hundreds of blood-research projects done in the past by researchers all over the world. "With this new database doctors can now link a specific abnormality in hundreds of different blood chemicals with a patient's specific medical problem," said Wishart. Wishart believes the adoption of his research will happen slowly, with hospitals incorporating new search protocols and equipment for a few hundred of the more than 4,000 blood-chemistry markers identified by Wishart and his colleagues. "People have being studying blood for more than 100 years," said Wishart. "By combining research from the past with our new findings we have moved the science of blood chemistry from a keyhole view of the world to a giant picture window." The research was published last week in the journal PLoS One.

Advance could speed use of genetic material RNA in nanotechnology

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 03:20:16 PDT

Scientists are reporting an advance in overcoming a major barrier to the use of the genetic material RNA in nanotechnology — the field that involves building machines thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair and now is dominated by its cousin, DNA. Their findings, which could speed the use of RNA nanotechnology for treating disease, appear in the monthly journal ACS Nano. Peixuan Guo and colleagues point out that DNA, the double-stranded genetic blueprint of life, and RNA, its single-stranded cousin, share common chemical features that can serve as building blocks for making nanostructures and nanodevices. In some ways, RNA even has advantages over DNA. The field of DNA nanotechnology is already well-established, they note. The decade-old field of RNA nanotechnology shows great promise, with potential applications in the treatment of cancer, viral, and genetic diseases. However, the chemical instability of RNA and its tendency to breakdown in the presence of enzymes have slowed progress in the field. The scientists describe development of a highly stable RNA nanoparticle. They tested its ability to power the nano-sized biological motor of a certain bacteriophage — a virus that infects bacteria — that operates using molecules of RNA. The modified RNA showed excellent biological activity similar, even in the presence of high concentrations of enzymes that normally breakdown RNA. The finding show that "it is practical to produce RNase (an enzyme that degrades RNA) resistant, biologically active, and stable RNA for application in nanotechnology," the article notes.

Nanotech medicine

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:15:31 PDT

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 322,000 deaths globally per year are linked to severe injuries from fire and in many of these cases death could have been avoided with surgical intervention.

In this type of intervention, when major burns patients have insufficient skin left to graft on the most damaged part of their body, new skin has literally to be grown from the patient’s own skin cells. However, the long delay in growing the skin can expose the burns patient to increased risk of infection and dehydration; so to help those cells to multiply, specialists use a particular kind of component called polymeric material. Because of their extraordinary range of properties, polymeric materials play a ubiquitous role in our daily life. This role ranges from familiar synthetic plastics: plastic bags or yoghurt cups, to natural biopolymers such as wood or proteins that are present in the human body......> Full story

Delivering a potent cancer drug with nanoparticles can lessen side effects

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 03:35:52 PDT

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have shown that they can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin much more effectively and safely in a form that has been encapsulated in a nanoparticle targeted to prostate tumor cells and is activated once it reaches its target.  

Using the new particles, the researchers were able to successfully shrink tumors in mice, using only one-third the amount of conventional cisplatin needed to achieve the same effect. That could help reduce cisplatin’s potentially severe side effects, which include kidney damage and nerve damage.  

In 2008, the researchers showed that the nanoparticles worked in cancer cells grown in a lab dish. Now that the particles have shown promise in animals, the team hopes to move on to human tests........> Full story

Team overcomes major obstacles to cellulosic biofuel production

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:22:07 PDT

A newly engineered yeast strain can simultaneously consume two types of sugar from plants to produce ethanol, researchers report. The sugars are glucose, a six-carbon sugar that is relatively easy to ferment; and xylose, a five-carbon sugar that has been much more difficult to utilize in ethanol production. The new strain, made by combining, optimizing and adding to earlier advances, reduces or eliminates several major inefficiencies associated with current biofuel production methods. The findings, from a collaborative led by researchers at the University of Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California and the energy company BP, are described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Energy Biosciences Institute, a BP-funded initiative, supported the research. Yeasts feed on sugar and produce various waste products, some of which are useful to humans. One type of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been used for centuries in baking and brewing because it efficiently ferments sugars and in the process produces ethanol and carbon dioxide. The biofuel industry uses this yeast to convert plant sugars to bioethanol. And while S. cerevisiae is very good at utilizing glucose, a building block of cellulose and the primary sugar in plants, it cannot use xylose, a secondary – but significant – component of the lignocellulose that makes up plant stems and leaves. Most yeast strains that are engineered to metabolize xylose do so very slowly. "Xylose is a wood sugar, a five-carbon sugar that is very abundant in lignocellulosic biomass but not in our food," said Yong-Su Jin, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Illinois. He also is an affiliate of the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology and a principal investigator on the study. "Most yeast cannot ferment xylose." A big part of the problem with yeasts altered to take up xylose is that they will suck up all the glucose in a mixture before they will touch the xylose, Jin said. A glucose transporter on the surface of the yeast prefers to bind to glucose. "It's like giving meat and broccoli to my kids," he said. "They usually eat the meat first and the broccoli later." The yeast's extremely slow metabolism of xylose also adds significantly to the cost of biofuels production. Jin and his colleagues wanted to induce the yeast to quickly and efficiently consume both types of sugar at once, a process called co-fermentation. The research effort involved researchers from Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California at Berkeley, Seoul National University and BP. In a painstaking process of adjustments to the original yeast, Jin and his colleagues converted it to one that will consume both types of sugar faster and more efficiently than any strain currently in use in the biofuel industry. In fact, the new yeast strain simultaneously converts cellobiose (a precursor of glucose) and xylose to ethanol just as quickly as it can ferment either sugar alone. "If you do the fermentation by using only cellobiose or xylose, it takes 48 hours," said postdoctoral researcher and lead author Suk-Jin Ha. "But if you do the co-fermentation with the cellobiose and xylose, double the amount of sugar is consumed in the same amount of time and produces more than double the amount of ethanol. It's a huge synergistic effect of co-fermentation." The new yeast strain is at least 20 percent more efficient at converting xylose to ethanol than other strains, making it "the best xylose-fermenting strain" reported in any study, Jin said. The team achieved these outcomes by making several critical changes to the organism. First, they gave the yeast a cellobiose transporter. Cellobiose, a part of plant cell walls, consists of two glucose sugars linked together. Cellobiose is traditionally converted to glucose outside the yeast cell before entering the cell through glucose transporters for conversion to ethanol. Having a cellobiose transporter means that the engineered yeast can bring cellobiose directly into the cell. Only after the cellobiose is inside the cell is it converted to glucose. This approach, initially developed by co-corresponding author Jamie Cate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley, eliminates the costly step of adding a cellobiose-degrading enzyme to the lignocellulose mixture before the yeast consumes it. It has the added advantage of circumventing the yeast's own preference for glucose. Because the glucose can now "sneak" into the yeast in the form of cellobiose, the glucose transporters can focus on drawing xylose into the cell instead. Cate worked with Jonathan Galazka, of UC Berkeley, to clone the transporter and enzyme used in the new strain. The team then tackled the problems associated with xylose metabolism. The researchers inserted three genes into S. cerevisiae from a xylose-consuming yeast, Picchia stipitis. Graduate student Soo Rin Kim at the University of Illinois identified a bottleneck in this metabolic pathway, however. By adjusting the relative production of these enzymes, the researchers eliminated the bottleneck and boosted the speed and efficiency of xylose metabolism in the new strain. They also engineered an artificial "isoenzyme" that balanced the proportion of two important cofactors so that the accumulation of xylitol, a byproduct in the xylose assimilitary pathway, could be minimized. Finally, the team used "evolutionary engineering" to optimize the new strain's ability to utilize xylose. The cost benefits of this advance in co-fermentation are very significant, Jin said. "We don't have to do two separate fermentations," he said. "We can do it all in one pot. And the yield is even higher than the industry standard. We are pretty sure that this research can be commercialized very soon." Jin noted that the research was the result of a successful collaboration among principal investigators in the Energy Biosciences Institute and a BP scientist, Xiaomin Yang, who played a key role in developing the co-fermentation concept and coordinating the collaboration.

Researchers can Participate in Online Life Science Conferences at Target Meeting free

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:10:21 PDT

If you are a professional or student involved in doing research or studying in the area of life sciences, the online "Life Science Conference" is a value addition to your research success. Participating in the online events at Target Meeting (targetmeeting.com) can offer you a professional platform to advance your understanding of hot research areas and network with other leading researchers. Meetings cover research topics such as Biochemistry, Cancer, Cardiovascular, Cell Biology, Drug Discovery, Genetics/Genomic, Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Biology, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology, Structural Biology, Medicine, Chemistry, and Technology.

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Champion hydrogen-producing microbe

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:28:27 PDT

Inside a small cabinet the size of a dorm refrigerator in one of Himadri B. Pakrasi's labs, a blue-green soup percolates in thick glass bottles under the cool light of red, blue and green LEDS. This isn't just any soup, however. It is a soup of champions. The soup is colored by a strain of blue-green bacteria that bubble off roughly 10 times the hydrogen gas produced by their nearest competitors—in part because of their unique genetic endowment but also in part because of tricks the scientists have played on their metabolism. Hydrogen gas can be produced by microbes that have enzymes called hydrogenases that take two hydrogen ions and bind them together. Although the soup microbes have hydrogenases, most of the hydrogen they evolve is a byproduct instead of an exceptionally efficient nitrogenase, an enzyme that converts the nitrogen in air to a nitrogen-containing molecule the microbes can use. The microbe's gas-producing feat is described in December 14,2010 issue of the online journal Nature Communications. Biohydrogen, like that bubbling up from the microbial soup, is one of the most appealing renewable energy fuels. Produced by splitting water with energy from the sun, it releases mostly water when it burns. It's hard to get any cleaner than that. The strain growing in the Roux bottles in the cabinet, called Cyanothece 51142 was originally found in the Gulf of Mexico by Louis A. Sherman of Purdue University, one of the article's authors. Its genes were sequenced in 2008 at the Genome Sequencing Center at the School of Medicine. Cyanothece 51142 may be new to science, but cyanobacteria, the group of organisms to which it belongs, have existed for at least 2.5 billion years, says Pakrasi, PhD, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, and professor of energy in the School of Engineering. These ancient organisms have had to survive a wide variety of chemical environments and have the metabolic tricks to show for it. All cyanobacteria have the ability to fix carbon from the atmosphere, stuffing it away in starch or glycogen, but Cyanothece is among the rarer strains that can also fix nitrogen, converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia and eventually to larger nitrogen-rich molecules. Because it can fix both carbon and nitrogen, when conditions warrant Cyanothece can survive on air, water and sunlight alone. It is about as self-reliant an organism as it is possible to be. There is one catch. Nitrogenase is very sensitive to oxygen and so carbon fixing (photosynthesis), which produces oxygen as a byproduct, has to separated from nitrogen-fixing in some way. Cyanothece accomplishes this by time division; it has an internal biological clock that establishes a circadian rhythm. (Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes (organisms without nuclei) that have a clock.) So Cyanothece fixes carbon glycogen molecules during the day, producing oxygen as a byproduct, and it fixes nitrogen in ammonia during the night, producing hydrogen as a byproduct. For every nitrogen molecule that's fixed, says Pakrasi, one hydrogen molecule is produced. Each half of the cycle powers the other. The glycogen produced in the day is consumed in the energy intensive process of fixing nitrogen at night. The fixed nitrogen produced at night is used to make nitrogen-containing proteins during the day. Pakrasi, who is also the director of I-CARES, the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability, calls the microbes biobatteries because they store daytime energy for use at night and nighttime energy for use in the day. The separation in time prevents the two metabolic processes from competing with one another. At night the bacteria begin to metabolize the glycogen (or respire). Quickly consuming intracellular oxygen, respiration creates the oxygen-free or anoxic conditions inside the bacteria the nitrogenase needs to do its work. Cyanothece's clock is set by the environmental cue of changing light levels. But once entrained by the day/night cycle, the clock continues to run even in the absence of the cues. Just as a prisoner kept in solitary confinement will maintain a roughly 24-hour sleep/wake cycle, Cyanothece will continue to fix nitrogen even if it is incubated under continuous light. As Pakrasi puts it, the entrained microbes are still experiencing "subjective dark" for 12 hours of the day. More strangely, entrained Cyanothece incubated under continuous light evolve more hydrogen than those cycling between light and dark. This is probably because the energy in light somehow fuels the energy-intensive nitrogenase reaction, says Anindita Bandyopadhyay, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Pakrasi's lab. The scientists are still trying to understand exactly why this happens. In addition to keeping the microbes awake all night, the scientists have another trick up their lab coat sleeves. Cyanothece can survive on the starvation diet of sunlight and air but adaptable microbe that it is, it can also live on carbon-containing molecules or on a mix of sunlight and carbon-containing molecules. The scientists found that the microbes produced more hydrogen if they were grown in cultures that contained glycerol, a colorless, sweet-tasting molecule that is frequently used as a food additive. The additional carbon in the glycerol revs up the nitrogenase to meet the increased demand for nitrogen in the cells, Pakrasi says. And the more active the nitrogenase, the more hydrogen is produced. Despite journalistic hype, Pakrasi warns, hydrogen is not the fuel of tomorrow. It's hard to transport and its energy density is too low. The fuel tank for a semi-trailer powered by hydrogen would take up half the trailer, he says. What intrigues him about the microbes is not their utility but rather their ingenuity. Their unique metabolism gives them the ability to produce hydrogen, a clean fuel, while disposing of two wasteproducts: glycerol, a copious byproduct of biodiesel production, and carbon dioxide, a waste product from coal-fired power plants. "They give you a lot of bang for your buck," he says. Cyanothece may soon be moving house—from cramped flasks in Pakrasi's lab to the giant bioreactors in Washington University's Advanced Coal and Energy Facility. There scientists will be able to monitor their every metabolic move as they feast on carbon-dioxide-rich flue gas from the site's combuster and bubble up hydrogen.

Scripps Research scientists home in on chemicals needed to reprogram cells

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 03:23:29 PDT

Scripps Research Institute scientists have made a significant leap forward in the drive to find a way to safely reprogram mature human cells and turn them into stem cells, which can then change into other cell types, such as nerve, heart, and liver cells. The ability to transform fully mature adult cells such as skin cells into stem cells has potentially profound implications for treating many diseases. In research published in the December 3, 2010 issue of Cell Stem Cell, Scripps Research Associate Professor Sheng Ding, PhD, reports a novel cocktail of drug-like small molecules that, with the assistance of a gene called Oct4, enables reprogramming of human skin cells into stem cells. "Our ultimate goal is to generate induced pluripotent stem cells with defined small molecules," Ding said. "This would offer a fundamentally new method and significant advantages over previous methods, such as genetic manipulation or more difficult-to-manufacture biologics." Using small-molecule compounds to reprogram adult human cells back to their pluripotent state — able to change into all other cell types — avoids the ethical controversy around embryonic stem cell research, and paves the way for the large-scale production of stem cells that could be used inexpensively and consistently in drug development. Cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and many other diseases might be possible if new cells could be created from a patient's own cells to replace those that have succumbed to disease or injury. Substituting Chemicals for Genes Scientists discovered in 2007 that fully differentiated mature cells, such as skin cells, could be "reprogrammed" to become pluripotent by using four transcription genes. One problem with this technique is that these genes, once inserted into a cell, permanently alter the host cell's DNA. "There are many concerns when the host cell's genome is manipulated," Ding says. "One major worry is that since the four genes are [cancer-causing] oncogenes, they could induce tumors or interrupt functions of other normal genes." Because of this danger, scientists have been searching for methods that could induce reprogramming without the use of these cancer-causing genes. The method the Ding lab has been pioneering — using small, synthetic molecules — represents a fundamentally different approach from the previous methods. "We are working toward creating drugs that are totally chemically defined, where we know every single component and precisely what it does, without causing genetic damage," Ding says. Breaking New Ground Scientists have known for at least 50 years that a cell's identity is reversible if given the right signal — cells go forward to become mature, functional cells or they can go backward to become primitive cells. In order for cellular reprogramming to be safe and practical enough to use in cell therapy, researchers have sought an efficient, reliable way to trigger the reprogramming process. In 2008, the Ding lab reported finding small molecules that could replace two of the required four genes. Now, two years later, through extraordinary effort and unique screening strategy, the lab made a major leap forward by finding a way to replace three out of the four genes. "We are only one step away from the ultimate goal, which would represent a revolutionary technology," Ding says. The new study also revealed that the novel compound facilitates a novel mechanism in reprogramming: the metabolic switch from mitochondrial respiration to glycolysis, an important mechanism for tissue regeneration. The small molecules Ding and his colleagues found promote reprogramming by facilitating such metabolic switching — an entirely new understanding of reprogramming. A future goal is to replace Oct4, a master regulator of pluripotency, in the chemical cocktail. " That would be the last step toward achieving the Holy Grail," Ding says. "Our latest discovery brings us one step closer to this dream."

Cinnamon can replace harmful chemicals used to create nanoparticles

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:21:05 PDT

Gold nanoparticles, tiny pieces of gold so small that they can't be seen by the naked eye, are used in electronics, healthcare products and as pharmaceuticals to fight cancer. Despite their positive uses, the process to make the nanoparticles requires dangerous and extremely toxic chemicals. While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, researchers have been worried about the environmental impact of the global nanotechnological revolution. Now, a study by a University of Missouri research team, led by MU scientist Kattesh Katti, curators' professor of radiology and physics in the School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Science, senior research scientist at the University of Missouri Research Reactor and director of the Cancer Nanotechnology Platform, has found a method that could replace nearly all of the toxic chemicals required to make gold nanoparticles. The missing ingredient can be found in nearly every kitchen's spice cabinet – cinnamon. The usual method of creating gold nanoparticles utilizes harmful chemicals and acids that are not environmentally safe and contain toxic impurities. In the MU study, Katti and researchers Raghuraman Kannan, the Michael J and Sharon R. Bukstein Distinguished Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research, assistant professor of radiology and director of the Nanoparticle Production Core Facility; and Nripen Chanda, a research associate scientist, mixed gold salts with cinnamon and stirred the mixture in water to synthesize gold nanoparticles. The new process uses no electricity and utilizes no toxic agents. "The procedure we have developed is non-toxic," Kannan said. "No chemicals are used in the generation of gold nanoparticles, except gold salts. It is a true 'green' process." "From our work in green nanotechnology, it is clear that cinnamon — and other species such as herbs, leaves and seeds — will serve as a reservoir of phytochemicals and has the capability to convert metals into nanoparticles," Katti said. "Therefore, our approach to 'green' nanotechnology creates a renaissance symbolizing the indispensable role of Mother Nature in all future nanotechnological developments." During the study, the researchers found that active chemicals in cinnamon are released when the nanoparticles are created. When these chemicals, known as phytochemicals, are combined with the gold nanoparticles, they can be used for cancer treatment. The phytochemicals can enter into cancer cells and assist in the destruction or imaging of cancer cells, Katti said. "Our gold nanoparticles are not only ecologically and biologically benign, they also are biologically active against cancer cells," Katti said. As the list of applications for nanotechnology grows in areas such as electronics, healthcare products and pharmaceuticals, the ecological implications of nanotechnology also grow. When considering the entire process from development to shipping to storage, creating gold nanoparticles with the current process can be incredibly harmful to the environment, Chanda said. "On one hand, you are trying to create a new, useful technology. However, continuing to ignore the environmental effects is detrimental to the progress," Kannan said. Katti, who is considered to be father of green nanotechnology, and Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug have shared similar views on the potential of green nanotechnology in medicine, agricultural and life sciences. Borlaug predicted a connection between medical and agricultural sciences. Katti, who is the editor of The International Journal of Green Nanotechnology, said that as more uses for nanotechnology are created, scientists must develop ways to establish the connection between nanotechnology and green science. The study was published this fall in Pharmaceutical Research.

Heating nanoparticles to kill tumor cells

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:33:05 PDT

Magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) is a promising new cancer treatment that essentially "fries" cells inside tumors. The procedure has been used successfully in prostate, liver, and breast tumors. Magnetic nanoparticles (each billionths of a meter in size) are injected into the body intravenously and diffuse selectively into cancerous tissues. Add a high-frequency magnetic field, and the particles heat up, raising the temperature of the tumor cells. "The entire tumor volume is heated above a threshold treatment temperature -- typically 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) -- for generally 30 minutes," explains engineering graduate student Monrudee Liangruksa of Virginia Tech. The outcome? As described today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Long Beach, CA, when the nanoparticles are heated, cancer cells die with no adverse effects to the surrounding healthy tissue. To further perfect the technique, Liangruksa and her colleagues explored the effects of different types of magnetic nanoparticles. The most promising varieties, they found, were iron–platinum, magnetite, and maghemite, all of which generate therapeutically useful heating. "However, we wish to use MFH in humans," she says, and "the most biocompatible agents are magnetite and maghemite. Iron–platinum is toxic and vulnerable to oxidation."

Multiple sclerosis drug serves as model for potential drugs to treat botulism poisoning

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:49:59 PDT

Scientists are reporting that variants of a drug already approved for treating multiple sclerosis show promise as a long sought treatment for victims of bioterrorist attack with botulinum neurotoxin — which is 10,000 times deadlier than cyanide and the most poisonous substance known to man. The potential drugs also could be useful in treating other forms of botulism poisoning as well as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and myasthenia gravis, they say in an article in ACS Chemical Biology, a monthly journal. Kim D. Janda and colleagues explain that the lack of any approved drug treatment for botulism poisoning leaves a major gap in defenses against bioterrorism and biological warfare. People exposed to botulism toxin develop paralysis, cannot breathe, and may require months of treatment on respirators. "The numbers of medical care units capable of providing supportive care for recovery in the event of a bioterrorism incident would be limited," they note. The scientists knew that the multiple sclerosis drug diaminopyridine showed promise for working inside nerve cells to counteract the effects of diaminopyridine botulism toxin. However, diaminopyridine itself had disadvantages, including its ability to pass into the brain and have toxic effects on brain tissue. They modified the molecular structure of diaminopyridine to produce two new substances that did not enter the brain and showed good potential as botulism treatments in mice that had been paralyzed by the toxin.

Nanotechnology: A dead end for plant cells?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 03:18:11 PDT

Using particles that are 1/100,000 the width of a human hair to deliver drugs to cells or assist plants in fighting off pests may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but these scenarios may be a common occurrence in the near future. Carbon nanotubes, cylindrically shaped carbon molecules with a diameter of about 1 nanometer, have many potential applications in a variety of fields, such as biomedical engineering and medical chemistry. Proteins, nucleic acids, and drugs can be attached to these nanotubes and delivered to cells and organs. Carbon nanotubes can be used to recognize and fight viruses and other pathogens. However, results of studies in animals have also raised concerns about the potential toxicity of nanoparticles. Recent research by a team of researchers from China, led by Dr. Nan Yao, explored the effects of nanoparticles on plant cells. The findings of Dr. Yao and his colleagues are published in the October issue of the American Journal of Botany (http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/reprint/97/10/1602). Dr. Yao and his team of researchers isolated cells from rice as well as from the model plant species Arabidopsis. The researchers treated these cells with carbon nanotubes, and then assessed the cells for viability, damage to DNA, and the presence of reactive oxygen species. The researchers found an increase in levels of the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide. Reactive oxygen species cause oxidative stress to cells, and this stress can result in programmed cell death. Dr. Yao and his colleagues discovered that the effect of carbon nanotubes on cells was dosage dependent—the greater the dose, the greater the likelihood of cell death. In contrast, cells exposed to carbon particles that were not nanotubes did not suffer any ill effects, demonstrating that the size of the nanotubes is a factor in their toxicity. "Nanotechnology has a large scope of potential applications in the agriculture industry, however, the impact of nanoparticles have rarely been studied in plants," Dr. Yao said. "We found that nanomaterials could induce programmed cell death in plant cells." Despite the scientists' observations that carbon nanotubes had toxic effects on plant cells, the use of nanotechnology in the agriculture industry still has great promise. The scientists only observed programmed cell death as a temporary response following the injection of the nanotubes and did not observe further changes a day and a half after the nanotube treatments. Also, the researchers did not observe death at the tissue level, which indicates that injecting cells with carbon nanotubes caused only limited injury. "The current study has provided evidence that certain carbon nanoparticles are not 100% safe and have side effects on plants, suggesting that potential risks of nanotoxicity on plants need to be assessed," Dr. Yao stated. In the future, Dr. Yao and colleagues are interested in investigating whether other types of nanoparticles may also have toxic effects on plant cells. "We would like to create a predictive toxicology model to track nanoparticles." Only once scientists have critically examined the risks of nanoparticles can they take advantage of the tremendous potential benefits of this new technology.

Chemists concoct new agents to easily study critical cell proteins

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:17:52 PDT

They are the portals to the cell, gateways through which critical signals and chemicals are exchanged between living cells and their environments. But these gateways -- proteins that span the cell membrane and connect the world outside the cell to its vital inner workings – remain, for the most part, black boxes with little known about their structures and how they work. They are of intense interest to scientists as they are the targets on which many drugs act, but are notoriously difficult to study because extracting these proteins intact from cell membranes is tricky. Now, however, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University has devised a technology to more easily obtain membrane proteins for study. Writing this week (Oct. 31) in the journal Nature Methods, the group reports the development of a class of agents capable of extracting complex membrane proteins without distorting their shape, a key to understanding how they work. "The proteins are embedded in the membrane to control what gets into the cell and what gets out," explains Samuel Gellman, a UW-Madison professor of chemistry and a senior author of the paper along with Brian Kobilka of Stanford and Bernadette Byrne of Imperial College London. "If we want to understand life at the molecular level, we need to understand the properties and functions of these membrane proteins." The catch with membrane proteins and unleashing their potential, however, is getting insight into their physical properties, says Gellman. Like other kinds of proteins, membrane proteins exhibit a complex pattern of folding, and determining the three-dimensional shapes they assume in the membrane provides essential insight into how they do business. Proteins are workhorse molecules in any organism, and myriad proteins are known. Structures have been solved for many thousands of so-called "soluble" proteins, but only a couple of hundred membrane protein structures are known, Gellman notes. This contrast is important because roughly one-third of the proteins encoded in the human genome appear to be membrane proteins. To effectively study a protein, scientists must have access to it. A primary obstacle has been simply getting proteins out of the membrane while maintaining their functional shapes. To that end, Gellman's group has developed a family of new chemical agents, known as amphiphiles, that are easily prepared, customizable to specific proteins and cheap. "These amphiphiles are very simple," says Gellman. "That's one of their charms. The other is that they can be tuned to pull out many different kinds of proteins." The hope, according to Gellman, is that the new technology will facilitate research at the biomedical frontier. The development of the amphiphiles was conducted in close collaboration with groups like Kobilka's, which specializes in techniques that help resolve the three-dimensional structures of proteins found in cell membranes.

Scented consumer products shown to emit many unlisted chemicals

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:30:08 PDT

The sweet smell of fresh laundry may contain a sour note. Widely used fragranced products -- including those that claim to be "green" -- give off many chemicals that are not listed on the label, including some that are classified as toxic. A study led by the University of Washington discovered that 25 commonly used scented products emit an average of 17 chemicals each. Of the 133 different chemicals detected, nearly a quarter are classified as toxic or hazardous under at least one federal law. Only one emitted compound was listed on a product label, and only two were publicly disclosed anywhere. The article is published online today in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review. "We analyzed best-selling products, and about half of them made some claim about being green, organic or natural," said lead author Anne Steinemann, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs. "Surprisingly, the green products' emissions of hazardous chemicals were not significantly different from the other products." More than a third of the products emitted at least one chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and for which the EPA sets no safe exposure level. Manufacturers are not required to disclose any ingredients in cleaning supplies, air fresheners or laundry products, all of which are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Neither these nor personal care products, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, are required to list ingredients used in fragrances, even though a single "fragrance" in a product can be a mixture of up to several hundred ingredients, Steinemann said. So Steinemann and colleagues have used chemical sleuthing to discover what is emitted by the scented products commonly used in homes, public spaces and workplaces. The study analyzed air fresheners including sprays, solids and oils; laundry products including detergents, fabric softeners and dryer sheets; personal care products such as soaps, hand sanitizers, lotions, deodorant and shampoos; and cleaning products including disinfectants, all-purpose sprays and dish detergent. All were widely used brands, with more than half being the top-selling product in its category. Researchers placed a sample of each product in a closed glass container at room temperature and then analyzed the surrounding air for volatile organic compounds, small molecules that evaporate off a product's surface. They detected chemical concentrations ranging from 100 micrograms per cubic meter (the minimum value reported) to more than 1.6 million micrograms per cubic meter. The most common emissions included limonene, a compound with a citrus scent; alpha-pinene and beta-pinene, compounds with a pine scent; ethanol; and acetone, a solvent found in nail polish remover. All products emitted at least one chemical classified as toxic or hazardous. Eleven products emitted at least one probable carcinogen according to the EPA. These included acetaldehyde, 1,4-dioxane, formaldehyde and methylene chloride. The only chemical listed on any product label was ethanol, and the only additional substance listed on a chemical safety report, known as a material safety data sheet, was 2-butoxyethanol. "The products emitted more than 420 chemicals, collectively, but virtually none of them were disclosed to consumers, anywhere," Steinemann said. Because product formulations are confidential, it was impossible to determine whether a chemical came from the product base, the fragrance added to the product, or both. Tables included with the article list all chemicals emitted by each product and the associated concentrations, although they do not disclose the products' brand names. "We don't want to give people the impression that if we reported on product 'A' and they buy product 'B,' that they're safe," Steinemann said. "We found potentially hazardous chemicals in all of the fragranced products we tested." The study establishes the presence of various chemicals but makes no claims about the possible health effects. Two national surveys published by Steinemann and a colleague in 2009 found that about 20 percent of the population reported adverse health effects from air fresheners, and about 10 percent complained of adverse effects from laundry products vented to the outdoors. Among asthmatics, such complaints were roughly twice as common. The Household Product Labeling Act, currently being reviewed by the U.S. Senate, would require manufacturers to list ingredients in air fresheners, soaps, laundry supplies and other consumer products. Steinemann says she is interested in fragrance mixtures, which are included in the proposed labeling act, because of the potential for unwanted exposure, or what she calls "secondhand scents." As for what consumers who want to avoid such chemicals should do in the meantime, Steinemann suggests using simpler options such as cleaning with vinegar and baking soda, opening windows for ventilation and using products without any fragrance. "In the past two years, I've received more than 1,000 e-mails, messages, and telephone calls from people saying: 'Thank you for doing this research, these products are making me sick, and now I can start to understand why,'" Steinemann said. Steinemann is currently a visiting professor in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. Co-authors are Ian MacGregor and Sydney Gordon at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio; Lisa Gallagher, Amy Davis and Daniel Ribeiro at the UW; and Lance Wallace, retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The research was partially funded by Seattle Public Utilities.