#New molecule found to prevent preterm birth Premature births are linked intimately with inflammation of the uterine tissue, a biological response
which induces contractions and preterm labor. In their search for a mean to prevent this phenomenon
and complications related to deliveries occurring before 37 weeks of gestation, researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine and University of Montreal discovered an agent that shows efficacy in inhibiting inflammation
and preventing or delaying uterine contractions and premature delivery in murine models--without adversely affecting the fetus or the mother.
This discovery is a giant step towards preventing prematurity, which is the world's leading cause of infant death and the origin of potentially severe,
long-lasting physical, intellectual or psychological impairment for the 10%of infants born preterm worldwide. While examining uterine tissues,
the scientists found a messenger, called Interleukin 1, to be responsible for triggering and amplifying inflammation in the uterus,
which led them to run preclinical trials in which they tested therapeutic agents known to target that messenger
--although they were used traditionally never such an application. However, their effect was found to be negligible on inflammation and contractility of the uterine cells,
Its physiological role is critical in protecting the vulnerable fetus against infections, and ensuring that cells will survive inflammation
scientists have developed another therapeutic agent, which proved much more effective, in addition to being safer than the existing molecules designed for the same target."
"The allosteric modulators that we have developed work differently. Our molecule is very small, "says enthusiastically Dr. Sylvain Chemtob, a neonatologist and investigator,
and the lead author of the study who developed the molecule in collaboration with his research associate Christiane Quiniou, Ph d. and Dr William Lubell, professor of chemistry at University of Montreal)."
lightweight solar cells track the sun Solar cells capture up to 40 percent more energy when they can track the sun across the sky,
but conventional, motorized trackers are too heavy and bulky for pitched rooftops and vehicle surfaces.
Now, by borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed solar cells that can have it both ways."
what a large tracking solar panel does and condenses it into something that is essentially flat, "said Aaron Lamoureux, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering and first author on the paper in Nature Communications.
Residential rooftops make up about 85 percent of solar panel installations in the U s.,according to a report from the Department of energy,
but these roofs would need significant reinforcing to support the weight of conventional sun-tracking systems.
A team of engineers and an artist developed an array of small solar cells that can tilt within a larger panel
keeping their surfaces more perpendicular to the sun's rays.""The beauty of our design is,
from the standpoint of the person who's putting this panel up, nothing would really change,
"said Max Shtein, associate professor of materials science and engineering.""But inside, it would be doing something remarkable on a tiny scale:
the solar cell would split into tiny segments that would follow the position of the sun in unison."
"Solar cell researchers think of tracking in terms of how much of a solar panel the sun can"see.""When the panel is at an angle,
it looks smaller. By designing an array that tilts and spreads apart when the sun's rays are coming in at lower angles,
they raise the effective area that is soaking up sunlight. To explore patterns, the team of engineers worked with paper artist Matthew Shlian, a lecturer in the U-M School of art and Design.
Shlian showed Lamoureux and Shtein how to create them in paper using a plotter cutter.
Lamoureux then made more precise patterns in Kapton, a space-grade plastic, using a carbon-dioxide laser.
the plastic pulled apart into a basic mesh. The interconnected strips of Kapton tilt in proportion to how much the mesh is stretched, to an accuracy of about one degree.
To make the solar array, Kyusang Lee, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, built custom solar cells in the lab of Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and Paul G. Goebel
Professor of Engineering. He and Lamoureux attached them to an uncut piece of Kapton, leaving spaces for the cuts.
because the solar cells would be very long and narrow. Scaling up to a feasible width, the cells became too long to fit into the chambers used to make the prototypes on campus,
it is almost as good as a conventional single-axis tracker, offering a 36 percent improvement over a stationary panel.
Conventional trackers produce about 40 percent more energy than stationary panels under the same conditions,
"It could ultimately reduce the cost of solar electricity
#Genome mining effort discovers 19 new natural products in four years It took two postdoctoral researchers, a lab technician,
four undergraduates and their faculty advisors only four years--a blink of an eye in pharmaceutical terms--to scour a collection of 10,000 bacterial strains
and isolate the genes responsible for making 19 unique, previously unknown phosphonate natural products, researchers report.
Phosphonates are an abundant and diverse class of natural signaling molecules that have already proved useful to medicine and agriculture
said University of Illinois microbiology professor William Metcalf, who led the research with U. of I. chemistry professor Wilfred van der Donk."
"We focused on phosphonates because we know they are predisposed strongly to have biological activity--antibiotic activity, antiviral activity, herbicidal activity,
"Metcalf said. Bacteria use these compounds to signal their presence to their microbial neighbors, or, at higher concentrations, to kill them,
and one as an herbicide--and another one is now in clinical trials to treat malaria,
"Postdoctoral researcher Kou-San Ju used a technique called"genome mining"to search the genomes of 10,000 strains of actinomycete bacteria for pepm,
a single gene that is required for most types of phosphonate biosynthesis. Postdoctoral researcher Jiangtao Gao then worked with Ju to purify
"Genome mining has previously been used, but only with a few organisms at a time,"Ju said.""We wanted to know
The researchers then sequenced the full genomes of all 278 strains that had the gene.
"In the old days, pharmaceutical companies would have done bioassays on extracts from all 10,000 species, "Metcalf said.
which the team named argolaphos, was found to be most potent against three types of bacteria that cause illness:
The researchers describe the new findings as a proof of concept that genome mining can be used on a scale that will speed the process of drug discovery,
or inspiration for, nearly two-thirds of all human medicines, yet research in this area has dwindled in recent years due to, among other reasons, high costs and increasing rates of rediscovery,
"Our study shows that genome mining is not only a viable route to new natural products, but that there are a tremendous number of new compounds awaiting discovery from the genomes of microbial strains,
"Ju said d
#New drug-like compounds may improve odds of men battling prostate cancer, researchers find Researchers at Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, have discovered three new drug-like compounds that could ultimately offer better odds of survival to prostate cancer patients.
The drug-like compounds can be modified and developed into medicines that target a protein in the human body that is responsible for chemotherapy resistance in cancers,
said biochemist Pia D. Vogel, lead author on the scientific paper reporting the discovery. So far there's no approved drug on the market that reverses cancer chemotherapy resistance caused by P-glycoprotein
or P-gp for short, said Vogel, a biochemistry professor at SMU. One potential drug, Tariquidar, is currently in clinical trials,
but in the past, other potential drugs have failed at that stage.""The problem when a person has cancer is that the treatment itself is composed of cellular toxins--the chemotherapeutics that prevent the cells from dividing.
Usually upon the first chemo treatment the cancer responds well, and initially goes away. Ideally it doesn't come back,
"said Vogel, who is director of SMU's Center for Drug Discovery, Design, and Delivery."
"Sometimes, however, the cancer returns,"she said.""The reason often is that some of the cancer cells"learn,"after the first rounds of chemotherapy,
how to make a lot of this P-gp pump. The normal function of P-gp is to pump toxins from cells,
so it has evolved to protect cells against a large variety of toxins, including almost all currently available chemotherapeutics.
After initial exposure, the cells surviving the chemo make so much P-gp that it allows the cells to pump the chemotherapy drugs straight back out of the cells during subsequent rounds of treatment."
"As a result, P-gp causes resistance of the diseased cells to a majority of drugs currently available for the treatment of cancer,
as well as drugs used for treatment of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS. Using computer-generated model speeds up the drug discovery process The new drug-like compounds discovered by Vogel
and her co-authors offer hope that using a computer-generated P-gp model, explained here http://bit. ly/1lvmr7a,
developed to accurately mimic the physical, chemical and biological functions of the protein in the human body, will speed up the drug discovery process
and work in real life as well.""These are not drugs yet. We still have to develop them before they can go in the clinic,
"Vogel said.""But what we know now is that they're not toxic--they have low toxicity to noncancerous cells,
so that's a pretty good predictor that they may be good candidates for drug development. But we need to do much more work."
"A pharmaceutical hit compound, like those discovered by Vogel and her co-authors, is a compound that is a promising candidate for chemical modification
so it can eventually be delivered to patients as a therapeutic drug. In the case reported here,
Vogel and her co-authors, SMU biologist John G. Wise, and doctoral candidates Courtney A. Follit and Frances K. Brewer, reported their findings in the journal Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.
The research was funded in part by the National institutes of health. The lab was awarded recently a second grant from the Institute.
Researchers virtually screened 15 million drug-like compounds via SMU supercomputer The SMU researchers discovered the three hit compounds after virtually screening more than 15 million small drug-like compounds made publically available
in digital form from the pharmacology database Zinc at the University of California, San francisco. Using SMU's Maneframe high performance computer,
Wise ran the compounds through a computer-generated model of P-gp. The virtual model, designed
and built by Wise, is the first computational microscope of its kind to simulate the actual behavior of P-gp in the human body,
and found four that inhibited the biochemical function of P-gp, stopping it in its action.
commonly used to treat prostate cancer patients. Also, each was tested on a companion cell line already multi-drug resistant,
they were able to push back the sensitivity of the resistant cancer line to the level of the non-resistant one."
just as if the cancer was seeing the chemotherapy for the first time, "Vogel said. About 14 percent of men will be diagnosed over their lifetime with prostate cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Survival is diagnosed highest if early before it has spread, the institute reports s
#New drug-like compounds may improve odds of men battling prostate cancer, researchers find Researchers at Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, have discovered three new drug-like compounds that could ultimately offer better odds of survival to prostate cancer patients.
The drug-like compounds can be modified and developed into medicines that target a protein in the human body that is responsible for chemotherapy resistance in cancers,
said biochemist Pia D. Vogel, lead author on the scientific paper reporting the discovery. So far there's no approved drug on the market that reverses cancer chemotherapy resistance caused by P-glycoprotein
or P-gp for short, said Vogel, a biochemistry professor at SMU. One potential drug, Tariquidar, is currently in clinical trials,
but in the past, other potential drugs have failed at that stage.""The problem when a person has cancer is that the treatment itself is composed of cellular toxins--the chemotherapeutics that prevent the cells from dividing.
Usually upon the first chemo treatment the cancer responds well, and initially goes away. Ideally it doesn't come back,
"said Vogel, who is director of SMU's Center for Drug Discovery, Design, and Delivery."
"Sometimes, however, the cancer returns,"she said.""The reason often is that some of the cancer cells"learn,"after the first rounds of chemotherapy,
how to make a lot of this P-gp pump. The normal function of P-gp is to pump toxins from cells,
so it has evolved to protect cells against a large variety of toxins, including almost all currently available chemotherapeutics.
After initial exposure, the cells surviving the chemo make so much P-gp that it allows the cells to pump the chemotherapy drugs straight back out of the cells during subsequent rounds of treatment."
"As a result, P-gp causes resistance of the diseased cells to a majority of drugs currently available for the treatment of cancer,
as well as drugs used for treatment of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS. Using computer-generated model speeds up the drug discovery process The new drug-like compounds discovered by Vogel
and her co-authors offer hope that using a computer-generated P-gp model, explained here http://bit. ly/1lvmr7a,
developed to accurately mimic the physical, chemical and biological functions of the protein in the human body, will speed up the drug discovery process
and work in real life as well.""These are not drugs yet. We still have to develop them before they can go in the clinic,
"Vogel said.""But what we know now is that they're not toxic--they have low toxicity to noncancerous cells,
so that's a pretty good predictor that they may be good candidates for drug development. But we need to do much more work."
"A pharmaceutical hit compound, like those discovered by Vogel and her co-authors, is a compound that is a promising candidate for chemical modification
so it can eventually be delivered to patients as a therapeutic drug. In the case reported here,
Vogel and her co-authors, SMU biologist John G. Wise, and doctoral candidates Courtney A. Follit and Frances K. Brewer, reported their findings in the journal Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.
The research was funded in part by the National institutes of health. The lab was awarded recently a second grant from the Institute.
Researchers virtually screened 15 million drug-like compounds via SMU supercomputer The SMU researchers discovered the three hit compounds after virtually screening more than 15 million small drug-like compounds made publically available
in digital form from the pharmacology database Zinc at the University of California, San francisco. Using SMU's Maneframe high performance computer,
Wise ran the compounds through a computer-generated model of P-gp. The virtual model, designed
and built by Wise, is the first computational microscope of its kind to simulate the actual behavior of P-gp in the human body,
and found four that inhibited the biochemical function of P-gp, stopping it in its action.
commonly used to treat prostate cancer patients. Also, each was tested on a companion cell line already multi-drug resistant,
they were able to push back the sensitivity of the resistant cancer line to the level of the non-resistant one."
just as if the cancer was seeing the chemotherapy for the first time, "Vogel said. About 14 percent of men will be diagnosed over their lifetime with prostate cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Survival is diagnosed highest if early before it has spread, the institute reports s
#Nano-dunes with the ion beam Many semiconductor devices in modern technology--from integrated circuits to solar cells and LEDS--are based on nanostructures.
Producing arrays of regular nanostructures usually requires substantial effort. If they were organized self, the production of such devices would be considerably faster
and the costs would therefore sink. Dr. Stefan Facsko from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and Dr. Xin Ou from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, have demonstrated now a method
for self-organization of nanostructured arrays via broad ion beam irradiation. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nanoscale.
In their astounding method the researchers use ion beams, which are charged fast, electrically atoms. They direct a broad beam of noble gas ions onto a gallium arsenide wafer, which,
for example, is used in producing high-speed and high-frequency transistors, photocells or light-emitting diodes.""One could compare ion bombardment with sand blasting.
This means that the ions mill off the surface of the target. There, the desired nanostructures are created all by themselves,
"explains Dr. Facsko. The finely chiselled and regular structure is reminiscent of sand dunes, natural structures created by wind.
however, in a nano-realm, with a mere distance of fifty nanometers between two dunes--strands of human hair are two thousand times thicker.
however, the ion beam destroys the crystal structure of the gallium arsenide and thus its semiconducting properties. Dr. Facsko's group at the HZDR's Ion beam Center therefore uses the opportunity to heat the sample during ion bombardment.
A further effect ensures that the nano-dunes on the semiconductor surface develop. The colliding ions
but also knock individual atoms entirely out of the crystal structure. Since the volatile arsenic does not remain bound on the surface,
In order to compensate for the missing arsenic atom bonds, pairs of two gallium atoms form, which arrange themselves in long rows.
Many experiments at different temperatures and comprehensive computations were necessary to both preserve the crystalline state of the semiconducting material as well to produce the well-defined structures at the nanoscale.
"The method of inverse epitaxy works for various materials but is still in its basic research phase.
or run our cars without adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By combining nanoscience and biology, researchers led by scientists at University of California,
Berkeley, have taken a big step in that direction. Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane, the primary component of natural gas
using a combination of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria. The research, detailed in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August, builds on a similar hybrid system, also recently devised by Yang and his colleagues,
that yielded butanol, a component in gasoline, and a variety of biochemical building blocks. The research is a major advance toward synthetic photosynthesis,
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis
Yang said his hybrid inorganic/biological systems give researchers new tools to study photosynthesis --and learn its secrets."
One purpose of this experiment was to show we could integrate bacterial catalysts with semiconductor technology.
Moore is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Arizona State university, where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately,
researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
especially the catalysts that convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars at room temperatures.""This is not about mimicking nature directly
or literally,"said Ted Sargent, the vice-dean of research for the Faculty of Applied science and Engineering at University of Toronto.
"Instead, it is about learning nature's guidelines, its rules on how to make a compellingly efficient and selective catalyst,
along with two other leading nanoscientists, discuss the remarkable science behind it --and how learning from nature's genius could transform our energy future.
Imagine creating artificial plants that make gasoline and natural gas using only sunlight. And imagine using those fuels to heat our homes
or run our cars without adding any greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. By combining nanoscience and biology, researchers led by scientists at University of California,
Berkeley, have taken a big step in that direction. Peidong Yang a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane,
the primary component of natural gas, using a combination of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria. The research, detailed in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August, builds on a similar hybrid system, also recently devised by Yang and his colleagues,
that yielded butanol, a component in gasoline, and a variety of biochemical building blocks. The research is a major advance toward synthetic photosynthesis
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis, Yang said his hybrid inorganic/biological systems give researchers new tools to study photosynthesis
--and learn its secrets.""We're good at generating electrons from light efficiently, but chemical synthesis always limited our systems in the past.
One purpose of this experiment was to show we could integrate bacterial catalysts with semiconductor technology.
Moore is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Arizona State university, where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately,
researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
especially the catalysts that convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars at room temperatures.""This is not about mimicking nature directly
or literally,"said Ted Sargent, the vice-dean of research for the Faculty of Applied science and Engineering at University of Toronto.
"Instead, it is about learning nature's guidelines, its rules on how to make a compellingly efficient and selective catalyst,
#Researchers work to improve antibiotic effectiveness Virginia Tech researchers have discovered a new group of antibiotics that may provide relief to some of the more than 2 million people in the United states affected by antibiotic resistance.
In 2013, invasive MRSA infections were estimated responsible for an 9, 937 deaths in the U s. Although current infection rates are declining, the majority of these deaths, about 8,
150, were associated with inpatient stays in health care facilities, according to the Active Bacterial Core surveillance report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The discovery, published in Medicinal Chemistry Communications, shows that the potential new antibiotics are unlike contemporary antibiotics
because they contain iridium, a silvery-white transition metal. New transition metal complexes do not easily breakdown,
which is important for delivery of antibiotics to where they are needed to fight infections in the body.
Even though these compounds contain iridium, further testing by the researchers shows that they are nontoxic to animals and animal cells.
Thus, they are likely safe for use in humans according to the researchers.""So far our findings show that these compounds are safer than other compounds made from transition metals,
"said Joseph Merola, a professor of chemistry in the College of Science, a Fralin Life science Institute affiliate,
and a corresponding author of the study.""One of the reasons for this is that the compounds in this paper that target MRSA are very specific,
meaning that a specific structure-function relationship must be met in order to kill the bacteria.""Researchers showed the antibiotics effectively kill the bacteria without inhibiting mammalian cells.
A version of the antibiotic was tested for toxicity in mice with no ill effects.""We are still at the beginning of developing
"said Joseph Falkinham, a professor of microbiology in the College of Science and an affiliate of the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery."
when antibiotic resistance is a significant health concern all over the world, for people and for livestock.
stating that it"represents a serious threat to public health and the economy.""In March, a National Action Plan outlined critical next steps for key federal agencies and departments.
According to estimates cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic resistance is a problem that adds around $20 billion annually to health care costs in the U s."The biggest question scientists have to ask to tackle antibiotic resistance is,
how can we stay on top of the bacteria? Fortunately, these new organometallic antibiotics are coming at a time
In both the U s. and Europe, the spread of MRSA is a major threat to people in hospitals and other health care facilities.
the infection can be life-threatening and cause pneumonia and infections in the bloodstream and in surgical wounds, according to the CDC.
Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium commonly found on the skin and nose which is how it spreads into hospitals and other medical facilities."
"Before you go into the hospital for surgery, many hospitals will do a nasal swab, and if you have staph,
they will treat you before surgery because it could be transferred into your body and cause serious infection,
"Falkinham said d
#First realization of an electric circuit with a magnetic insulator using spin waves Researchers at the University of Groningen, Utrecht University,
the Université de Bretagne Occidentale and the FOM Foundation have found that it is possible to make an electric circuit with a magnetic insulator.
This was deemed first impossible. The circuit is realized using spin waves: wavelike perturbations in the magnetic properties of a material.
Their discovery is interesting for the development of novel, energy-efficient electronic devices, particularly integrated circuits. A device based on spin waves could theoretically operate more efficiently than ordinary electronic circuits.
The results of their research will be published online in Nature Physics on Monday 14 september. In our current electronic equipment, information is transported via the motion of electrons.
In this scheme, the charge of the electron is used to transmit a signal. In a magnetic insulator, a spin wave is used instead.
Spin is a magnetic property of an electron. A spin wave is caused by a perturbation of the local magnetisation direction in a magnetic material.
Such a perturbation is caused by an electron with an opposite spin, relative to the magnetisation.
Spin waves transmit these perturbations in the material. This research demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to transmit electric signals in an insulating material.
Strong perturbation So far, electrical circuits based on spin waves have not been realised, since it turned out to be impossible to introduce a perturbation in the system large enough to create spin waves.
FOM workgroup leader prof. dr. Bart van Wees and his Phd student Ludo Cornelissen, both from the University of Groningen and FOM workgroup leader dr. Rembert
Duine from Utrecht University have succeeded to use spin waves in an electric circuit by carefully designing the device geometry.
This allows them to make use of the spin waves that are already present in the material due to thermal fluctuations,
and hence enables the spin waves to be used in an electric circuit. The spin wave circuit that the researchers built,
consists of a 200 nanometre thin layer of yttrium iron garnet (a mineral and magnetic insulator, YIG in short), with a conducting platinum strip on top of that on both sides.
The detection process is exactly opposite to the spin wave injection: a spin wave collides at the interface between YIG and platinum,
This influences the motion of the electron, resulting in an electric current that the researchers can measure.
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