July 2006 – Page 3 – David Bradley

Face to face with gold nanoparticles

Bling comes to the world of nanotechnology, as japanese scientists coat crystals with gold particles. The modification of specific crystal faces of organic single crystals using gold nanoparticles could open up new possibilities for crystal engineering of materials with novel optical, electronic, and catalytic properties, according to the researchers.

Kazuki Sada, Seiji Shinkai, and colleagues of Kyushu University, in Fukuoka, Japan, have demonstrated that gold nanoparticles can be made to adhere to only certain faces of crystals of the amino acid cystine, suggesting that such “building blocks” might be used for creating sophisticated nanostructures with designer facets.

Read about the ultimate nano bling here.

Cold sore virus blocks immune system

It’s no wonder that sufferers find cold sores so hard to get rid of. A newly identified method deployed by viruses to escape the immune system has been discovered by researchers at Yale University. Writing in the August issue of Nature Immunology, the team describes how many strategies devised by viruses to ‘hide’ or ‘escape’ are well known, but HSV-1 (herpes simplex virus 1) seems to employ an entirely new mechanism.

Immune cells called natural killer T cells are important in detecting and containing HSV-1 infections, which cause cold sores. HSV-1 particles are ‘displayed’ on the surface of infected cells, enabling the natural killer T cells to distinguish between infected and uninfected cells. The molecule CD1d, which presents HSV-1 particles, constantly moves in a loop from the cell surface to the interior of the cell to sample and display of the contents of infected cells to natural killer T cells.

Peter Cresswell and colleagues demonstrate that HSV-1 blocks this loop; specifically preventing CD1d molecules from returning back to the cell surface. As a result, HSV-1-infected cells appear to be uninfected and are therefore nearly ‘invisible’ to natural killer T cells. The researchers concede that they don’t know exactly how the virus blocks CD1d looping, but once they find out this activity could become the target for new drug discovery efforts for treating this nasty infection.

For more on HSV-1 check out Wikipedia

Dietary stress

“Diet is an important part of healthy living,” Jeremy Nicholson of Imperial College revealed to SpectroscopyNOW, “it is just some things that are supposed to relieve stress – and widely touted by healthfood companies as being good for you – do not metabolically ameliorate the effects of even very minor experimental stress.” He and his colleagues have used NMR spectroscopy to analyse marker compounds in blood samples from rats under stress that have had their food switched to included polyunsaturated fats. “No one has actually tested this particular health claim before and this one doesnt stand up well,” Nicholson says. Additionally, the research shows it is possible to accurately measure and quantify how changing diet impacts health. This could ultimately lead to the development of more targeted and more effective products.

You can read the full details in my news round-up on spectroscopynow.com

Needle free bird flu vaccine

A needle-free, DNA-based, vaccine against avian influenza strain H5N1 has been developed by UK company Powder Med Ltd and will soon enter clinical trials.

This new vaccine is based upon PowderMed’s proprietary system for delivering DNA
vaccines — it is a needle-free injection device that fires gold particles coated with DNA
(encoding genes specific to the flu strain) at supersonic speed into the immune cells of
the skin. This first-time-in-man clinical trial will examine the ability of a vaccine based
upon the Vietnam H5N1 avian influenza strain to protect against a potential pandemic
form of flu.

A previous study, conducted by PowderMed in the United States, demonstrated that this
vaccine technology was able to produce 100% protective immune responses in adult
volunteers to a vaccine which encoded an annual influenza strain

Of course, who’s to say H5N1 will be the cause of the imminent bird flu epidemic or indeed that any avian influenza strain will be the next big viral attack on the human race. There are also sorts of terrifying possibilities lying dormant in exotic hosts the world over…think SARS…think HIV…think ebola…

This is my report from the Royal Society on emerging viral infections

Windows admin protection

Here’s a neat little tip I picked up from Webmasterworld.com. If you’re worried about catching an infection from a contaminated website, then create a new user on your Windows XP machine that doesn’t have administrator rights.

Start-Control Panel-User Accounts
Create a new account (JaneDoes, frinstance)
Set as “Limited” user

Then, when you plan on visiting suspect sites, logoff from your admin account and logon as JaneDoe. Now, most rogue installers that the suspect site tries to set in motion will not be installable because JaneDoe’s account doesn’t have install rights.

Please don’t rely on this for full protection. Get Spybot S&D (the genuine one) and use its Immunize function to protect your browser. Or, join 15% of US net users who have adopted Firefox as their browser of choice and make sure you keep a tight rein on sites that you allow to install software.

Explosive sex, coral killers, room for shrooms and more

This week the Alchemist discovers that carbon dioxide could pose a serious threat to marine life and in particular corals and the marine ecosystems that depend on them. We also find out how publication of new rigorous research into the effects of ‘shrooms’ could represent a watershed moment in understanding hallucinogens. Solving the problem of soliton structure is set to lead to new types of actuators and fine control for artificial muscles and TEM stacks up carbon nanotubes for peak-time viewing. Finally this week, explosive sex in a tube. But, you’ll have to wait till at least 2008.

http://www.chemweb.com/alchemist-current

Multitasking drugs

An issue I have written about for the Nature drug discovery site is the re-marketing of pharmaceutical products for uses other than the original one for which a drug was developed. The latest example is the emergence of the so-called “morning after” pill RU486 as a rapid-acting antidepressant (it has already found use in treating certain cancers and psychotic depression).

RU486, mifepristone, is a steroidal hormone similar in chemical structure to progesterone. It inhibits the progesterone receptor and so is termed an ‘antiprogestin’, its effect is to induce abortion.

This week New Scientist reports on how RU486 might work as an antidepressant:

“The hormone treatment is based on earlier findings that stress plays a major part in triggering and prolonging depression. Stress hormones appear to damage a part of the brain called the hippocampus. The region is susceptible because it is particularly rich in hormone receptors, allowing it to regulate ongoing hormone release,” the magazine says.

Cornell University Researchers Redux

Last year, I reported how scientists at Cornell University were working on ways to improve P2P systems. In case you didn’t know, P2P (peer to peer) are infamous as a major route for software, music, and movie piracy.

Anyway, they’re at it again, although this time researchers at Cornell have cracked the codes for Europe’s GPS (global positioning system) so that anyone could access its data for free.

Members of GPS Laboratory have cracked the so-called pseudo random number (PRN) codes despite efforts to keep the codes secret. It means anyone with a sat-nav device, including handheld receivers and in-car systems which need PRNs to listen to satellites, can get the info they need for free. The codes and the methods used to extract them were published in the June issue of GPS World.

The navigational satellite, GIOVE-A (Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-A), is a prototype for 30 satellites that by 2010 will compose Galileo, a $4 billion joint venture of the European Union, European Space Agency and private investors. Galileo is Europe’s answer to the United States’ GPS.

In late January, Mark Psiaki, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell and co-leader of Cornell’s GPS Laboratory, requested the codes from Martin Unwin at Surrey Space Technologies Ltd., one of three privileged groups in the world with the PRN codes. “In a very polite way, he said, ‘Sorry, goodbye,'” recalled Psiaki. Next Psiaki contacted Oliver Montenbruck, a friend and colleague in Germany, and discovered that he also wanted the codes. “Even Europeans were being frustrated,” said Psiaki. “Then it dawned on me: Maybe we can pull these things off the air, just with an antenna and lots of signal processing.”

Within one week Psiaki’s team developed a basic algorithm to extract the codes. Two weeks later they had their first signal from the satellite, but were thrown off track because the signal’s repeat rate was twice that expected. By mid-March they derived their first estimates of the code, and — with clever detective work and an important tip from Montenbruck — published final versions on their Web site (http://gps.ece.cornell.edu/galileo) on April 1. The next day, NovAtel Inc., a Canadian-based major manufacturer of GPS receivers, downloaded the codes from the Web site and within 20 minutes began tracking GIOVE-A for the first time.

Galileo eventually published PRN codes in mid-April, but they weren’t the codes currently used by the GIOVE-A satellite. Furthermore, the same publication labeled the open source codes as intellectual property, claiming a license is required for any commercial receiver. “That caught my eye right away,” said Psiaki. “Apparently they were trying to make money on the open source code.”

Afraid that cracking the code might have been copyright infringement, Psiaki’s group consulted with Cornell’s university counsel. “We were told that cracking the encryption of creative content, like music or a movie, is illegal, but the encryption used by a navigation signal is fair game,” said Psiaki. The upshot: The Europeans cannot copyright basic data about the physical world, even if the data are coming from a satellite that they built.

“Imagine someone builds a lighthouse,” argued Psiaki. “And I’ve gone by and see how often the light flashes and measured where the coordinates are. Can the owner charge me a licensing fee for looking at the light? No. How is looking at the Galileo satellite any different?”

I’m fairly sure that things won’t be quite so clear cut once the lawyers get involved. After all there’s a whole world of difference between looking at a lighthouse to make sure your ship doesn’t hit the rocks and doing a full spectral analysis of the light source to determine the customer reference number for the lighthouse owner’s electricity bill!

Domo Aragato Kenkyusha

Old friend Michael Engel, who works for a Japanese chemical company, emailed to tell me that help is available, the form of a discussion group on Yahoo! for foreign researchers presently in Japan, who have been in Japan or are planning to come, or who have otherwise contact with Japan.

The list is called kenkyusha (meaning researcher) and can be accessed here.

Scientific organizations in Japan and around the world are encouraged to post information about
bilateral research and/or exchange programs, scholarships, research programs in general, and other relevant information for international researchers in Japan. The list operates in English, but Japanese speakers can post in Japanese if they like but with an English preface to their post.

The site was set up on June 27 and at the time of writing has 16 members and rising.

Nitroglycerine and Sex

Nitroglycerine is best known for being the explosive substance you daren’t drop if you’re in a 1950s B movie. But, it also has several medical applications including acting as a vasodilator in the treatment of angina. It was in searching for novel and patentable drugs with similar activity that led to the discovery of Viagra, an experimental drug originally destined for the heart, which found itself pumping blood in an altogether different physiological venue.

Now, nitrogylcerine, or glycerine trinitrate as The Times (London) referred to it yesterday, is set to enter clinical trials as a topical alternative to Viagra and other impotence treatments.

Topical, you say? Doesn’t that mean it has to be rubbed in?

Indeed, Futura Medical in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, hope to market a gel that would be applied directly to the penis, cause vasodilation, and that blood pumping we mentioned earlier. The trials will also investigate the effects the gel has on women who share the experience of topical application with a male partner. Why the ladies don’t get their own separate trial The Times does not say. Of course, nitroglycerine is well known for causing headaches, so there’s a little, or big, wedge of irony in any such trial, surely?

Futura and GSK expect the new product codenamed MED2002, for some odd reason, to pass muster with the regulators in 2008 (so why didn’t they call it MED2008?) and be marketed soon thereafter as an over-the-counter, or maybe under-the-counter-in-a-brown-paper-bag, product.

In the meantime, we now have another product for the spammers to add to their list of fake Rx sales, so watch out for spams with subject lines containing – MED2oo2, M@d2002, Medd2002, etc etc, ad infinitum.