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Cancer cell undergoing apoptosis (cell death)

Image: National Cancer Institute

Issue no. 30, 2011 Published: Sep 09, 2011
Killing a cancer cell from the inside out
Plastic bottles could clean arsenic-contaminated water
Microbes turn nuclear waste into electricity
Test could give HIV diagnosis 'in minutes'
Self-directed microspider could repair blood vessels
New forensics tool can expose all your online activity

Killing a cancer cell from the inside out
Researchers at MIT and ETH Zurich have found a way to program cells to determine whether they have become cancerous, and if they have, to order their own suicide. The technology offers the possibility of designing cell-death-inducing programs specific to any type of cancer, which could effectively kill tumours while leaving healthy tissues unharmed. To create their tumour-killing program, the researchers designed a logic circuit - a system that makes a decision based on multiple inputs. In this case, the circuit is made of genes that detect molecules specific to a type of cervical cancer cell. If the right molecules are present, the genes initiate production of a protein that stimulates apoptosis, or programmed cell death. If not, nothing happens. Because the genes used to create the circuits can be easily swapped in and out, this approach could also yield new treatments or diagnostics for many other diseases. The team are now working on optimizing the circuit to eliminate any false positives and developing new circuits that can identify additional cell types. They also hope to test the approach in living animals and eventually humans. They are also investigating possible methods to package and deliver the DNA that comprises the circuit.
R&D Magazine / Science Sep 06, 2011	back to top

Plastic bottles could clean arsenic-contaminated water
Chopped up plastic bottles covered in a common chemical may be a simple and inexpensive method for removing arsenic from drinking water. A team at Monmouth University, United States, found that bits of plastic coated with cysteine, a common molecule found in foods, bind to arsenic. In Bangladesh alone some 35 million people are exposed to arsenic contamination from drinking water, according to the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), and estimates say around 100 million in the developing world are affected. Arsenic has been linked to a variety of health problems from stomach pains and blindness to various cancers - one in five deaths in Bangladesh has been linked to arsenic exposure. The researchers showed that the method can reduce the arsenic content from 20 parts per billion (ppb) - two times higher than the safe standard set by the US Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water - to 0.2 ppb. The team are now looking for a commercial partner to scale up the process.
SciDev Sep 07, 2011	back to top

Microbes turn nuclear waste into electricity
Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a new strain of a microbe which can efficiently clean up nuclear waste and other toxic metals while generating electricity. Uranium contamination can be produced at any step in the production of nuclear fuel. And while it's been known for some time that Geobacter can immobilize uranium, the team discovered that the secret to the decontamination process is nanowires - hair-like appendages found on the outside of Geobacters - and were able to tailor the organism accordingly. The nanowires also shield Geobacter and allow the bacteria to thrive in a toxic environment. In a test, the researchers injected acetate into contaminated groundwater. Since this is Geobacter's favourite food, it stimulated the growth of the Geobacter community already in the soil, which in turn, worked to remove the uranium. The researchers were able to genetically engineer a Geobacter strain with enhanced nanowire production. The modified version improved the efficiency of the bacteria's ability to immobilize uranium proportionally to the number of nanowires, while subsequently improving its viability as a catalytic cell. The work could lead to the development of microbial fuel cells capable of generating electricity while cleaning up after environmental disasters, according to the researchers.
TG Daily Sep 07, 2011	back to top

Test could give HIV diagnosis 'in minutes'
An easy-to-use diagnostic chip could be a game changer in the field of cheap diagnostics for remote regions, according to the researchers who developed it. Tests of the 'mChip' on blood samples collected in Rwanda showed that it can diagnose HIV/AIDS and detect 100% of cases in just 15 minutes - with the same accuracy as standard laboratory tests that can take weeks to give a result. The chip is roughly the size of a postage stamp and can be cheaply mass produced. Researchers say that the same technology could be used to diagnose other diseases, such as malaria and hepatitis. It combines microfluidics, an interdisciplinary field of science that deals with tiny amounts of fluids, with nanotechnology in a single, hand-held device. The resulting chip is essentially a miniature ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test, a standard laboratory diagnostic test based on detecting molecules. It needs a drop of blood, which is treated with pre-loaded reagents within the chip that produce a visual result that can be read off directly or using a mobile-phone sized device. Each test would cost around USD 1 and the full device USD 100.
SciDev / Nature Medicine Sep 06, 2011	back to top

Self-directed microspider could repair blood vessels
A new spider-like micromachine could swim through a person's blood vessels, healing damaged areas and delivering drugs as it goes. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have created the self-propelling microspiders using spheres less than a micrometre wide. Each sphere is made up of two halves - one hemisphere is gold, the other silica - and looks like a gold-and-silver Christmas bauble. To turn the spheres into motors, the group attached a Grubbs catalyst - a molecule that builds long chains of smaller molecules - to the silica side. When the spheres are dropped into a solvent containing the chemical norbornene, the catalyst spins a polymer from molecules of the chemical. Eventually there are far more unpolymerised single molecules of norbornene around the gold side of the sphere than the silica side, creating an osmotic gradient, as fluids will always move from a region with lots of particles to a region with fewer particles. The solvent rushes toward the gold side of the sphere, causing the whole sphere to move. The team were able to control the direction of the spheres' movement by placing lumps of gel soaked in norbornene at one corner of the tank of solvent. The thread-spinning spheres followed the trail of leached norbornene towards the gels. In the future, more sophisticated microspiders attached to nanobots that detect chemicals secreted by damaged tissue could swim through the bloodstream, weaving a medical glue to help heal tears in vessel walls. Decorated with other micromachines and enzymes, they could swim through the circulatory system scouting out tumours, scouring plaque from vessel walls and helping the immune system battle infections.
New Scientist / Angewandte Chemie Sep 06, 2011	back to top

New forensics tool can expose all your online activity
It is another escalation in the computer security arms race. Software that can uncover all of a person's online activity could, in the hands of the police, put more sex offenders behind bars - but it may also be exploited to develop new ways of avoiding being caught. Researchers from Stanford University in California have managed to bypass the encryption on a PC's hard drive to find out what websites a user has visited and whether they have any data stored in the cloud. The open-source software, Offline Windows Analysis and Data Extraction (OWADE), was launched at the Black Hat 2011 security conference and works with PCs running on the Windows operating system. The majority of sensitive data on a hard drive, including browsing history, site logins and passwords, uses an algorithm to generate an encryption key based on the standard Windows login. Last year, the researchers discovered how this system works - making them the only team in the world, other than Microsoft, able to decrypt the files. Now the team have made their discovery public, with free access. The software combines this new knowledge with existing data-extraction techniques to create a single package that can uncover illegal online activities.
New Scientist Sep 07, 2011	back to top