No More Needles!!
This one’s a plea for more pleasant consultations. In other words: I never want to be scared to death again when visiting the doctor.
When I recently had a routine check at my GP, he noticed that my immunisation protection against Tetanus bacteria (given by a combined Td-Polio vaccine) had expired. He smiled maliciously – and made way for his nurse who came along with SUCH A HUGE AND HORRIBLE INJECTION GUN…
Phew! I barely survived it. Now I’m safe from infections as well as injections for the coming five years. However, what then? Avoiding doctors and needles but running the risk of falling ill by tetanus?
Why has Big Pharma so far failed to develop Td Polio vaccine alternatives such as oral and nasal vaccination?
Recent research offers at least two additional possibilities.
Firstly, how about a “vaccine plaster”? A study recently published by Greg Glenn and Sarah Frech (Iomai Corp., acquired in May 08 by Austria’s Intercell) reports promising results for patches that vaccinate travellers against diarrhoea (“Use of a patch containing heat-labile toxin from Escherichia coli against travellers’ diarrhoea: a phase II, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled field trial”, Lancet 2008, 371(9629):2019). Other groups are testing this vaccination way on Alzheimer’s disease for a while.
Wow, glittering – just stick a small plaster to people’s skins!
Another way to escape nasty nurses with huge needles would be nasal vaccination – studied or yet developed against RSV, HIV, Alzheimer’s, Haemophilus influenzae, Flu, etc etc etc.
Why, for the world, haven’t they developed a smooth and gentle Td Polio vaccine, yet? Or have they already? Who knows?
Mad Scientists and their Life Forms
You consider yourself an unorthodox, free-thinking mind? Well, I am afraid you missed a crucial deadline: a definitely weird but also inspiring competition has found its winners without you.
I refer to the world’s first “mad science contest” (themed “Build a Life Form and We’ll Send You to Hong Kong”). Searching for “biology to be brazen”, the contest ought to identify “mad scientists with homebrew closet labs, grassroots geneticists, and garage genome hackers”. These mad scientists were “the people most likely to change the world”, the organisers believe.
What was the challenge about? Well, the contestants were asked on June 7th this year to build a real life form using “scientifically plausible” materials (whatever this might be).
After almost three months, the winners had been found: champion in the “biobricks life form category” is Vijaykumar Meli with his novel class of rhizobial bacteria that do symbiosis with rice roots what makes nitrogen synthesis more efficiently. Meli is a biotechnology Ph.D. student from New Delhi, India. Take a look at his “mad” idea (actually quite conventional, isn’t it?).
Other synthetic life forms suggested by the competitors are worlds more bizarre – such as Elliott Gresswell’s carnivorous, water-going tree and Naor Livne’s Spliterphage.
The question of whether top-ranking politicians are life forms, too, remains to be answered.
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When Scientist play jokes …
This one’s about crop growing and gardening, no kidding!
However, the location is somewhat, well, strange…
Anyway – enjoy the comical incident when Erik Fransén, a Swedish researcher, went away on a Neuroscience conference in the USA for two weeks and noticed on his return that his computer keyboard had come to life.
You can read about the whole affair on the website of Fransén’s colleague Johannes Hjorth:
http://www.nada.kth.se/~hjorth/krasse/english.html
Really a bad joke, isn’t it? If I had been in the place of unfortunate Fransén, I’d have been scared witless and immediately would have tested my hard drive for further green infestations.
The Swede’s joke has spawned imitators. Here is one eternized on Youtube. Here is another. Â
By the way, gardening already appears to be a topic for jokers. When investigating for the “growing cress on a keyboard” story, I stumbled upon this nice gardening clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5F04ItE3Oo&feature=user
Well, one has to have a sense of humour at Canadian colleges when Paul Telner is around!
Ooooh that smell …!
“Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you’re in my way
There’s too much coke and too much smoke
Look what’s going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you”
(“That Smell” by US rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released in 1977 – a song about Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington who bought a new car, got drunk and crashed it into a tree and then into a house.)
You remember this ole song? It crossed my mind when I heard of the following: US chemist Michelle Gallagher and colleagues recently presented the first odour profile for skin cancer (Gallagher is employed by Monell Chemical Senses Center, a non-profit institute dedicated to basic research on the senses of taste, smell and chemosensory irritation). The scientist was inspired by previous research reports that dogs could be trained to detect the scent of cancer.
ScienCentral (where you can view this interview with Gallagher) commented: “That [the first odour profile for skin cancer] could lead to a new cancer sniffing technology”.
Ha-ha! – A new sniffing technology. Nice wording!
Well, this story’s background actually isn’t that funny. Skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, BCC) is the most common type of cancer in industrialised countries, killing 17,000 every year in Europe and nearly 9,000 in the USA. A prominent skin cancer patient is US president nominee John McCain.
Such a “synthetic nose” could be a much easier and less painful way to get patient’s diagnosis. At present, doctors diagnose skin cancer by visual examination, followed by an invasive biopsy.
Gallagher’s experimental methods (when developing an assay to distinguish between normal and cancerous skin) were unorthodox, too: she used a tool that looked like an upside down martini glass to sample the air above skin from volunteers (Gallagher detected 92 chemicals using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry).
An upside down martini glass. Amazing. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s musicians would have been amused.
Unfortunately, it’s beyond their power. Half the rock band was killed in a tragic plane crash a few days after their 1977 tour had started.
Genetically modified muscle monsters
Only one more day until the 2008 Summer Olympic Games start. Needless to say that these Games will be a prime example of Love, Peace and Harmony (at least when visiting the slashed “world” wide web from an internet café in Beijing…).
However, I have to muddy the good mood a little. Quit the OSM (= Olympic Smile Mode) for a while, please, and arm yourself for a bad word:
Gene - yuck! - doping. Gene doping.
For years, naysayers gloomily have predicted that gene doping will soon emerge to a great challenge, forecasting souped-up muscle monsters prizing up heavy-weight barbells in a flash and finishing the 100 meters in less than 9 seconds afterwards. But let’s stay cool – actually, the topic “gene doping” is rather science fiction (at least, if you allude to successful gene therapy in humans).
Still, the USADA (the US Antidoping agency) and the WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) want to be prepared. They have commissioned Canadian researcher Jim Rupert to develop new testing methods which will track down those misusing gene-based medical treatments in the future. Mr Rupert got a $325,000 grant last year to come up with a prototype assay to detect siRNA mediated gene doping (to tell the difference between real hormones and those created by gene therapy).
Rupert admitted this could be difficult. To look after something that still doesn’t exist is a tricky job.
Cancer has a cacophonous melody (really?)
Well, in my opinion, the following is quite bizarre: Gil Alterovitz, an electrical and biomedical engineer with proteomics skills (and MIT alumnus, as well), is developing a computer program that translates protein and gene expression into music.
I’m not kidding. Recently, the Technology Review (TR) published an article on this guy’s conversion of genetic activity into music. “Harmony represents good health and discord indicates disease”, we learn from TR writer Jennifer Chu, and, in addition, that “Alterovitz hopes that doctors will one day be able to use his music to detect health-related changes in gene expression early through the musical slip into discord”.
Wow, what an impressive approach – at least at first sight.
However – are aficionados of unorthodox and experimental music, such as jazz, industrial hip-hop or the Second Viennese School, reading this? Well then? Do you agree with Alterovitz? Is it okay that he is linking healthiness to the tunes of classical and, say, folk music, whereas connecting illnesses to more uncommon harmonies? As a former heavy metal enthusiast I shouldn’t be amused…
In either case, Alterovitz’ computer programme is a funny plaything (and excellent means for him to find further funding, as I suppose maliciously…).
gene synthesis order in less than 50 seconds
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High GC content gene synthesis
This success story was provided by the group of Prof. Dr. Bechthold (Pharmaceutical Biology, Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg)
This synthetic gene was prepared by Mr Gene while other companies refused to synthesize the gene due to a very high GC content.
Order submitted: March 18th - gene finalized: April 17th
Length: 471 bp - GC content: 71 %
The pharmaceutical activity of many natural products, among them valuable antibiotics and anticancer therapeutics, depends on regio- and stereospecifically attached sugar moieties. The attachment of these sugars is catalyzed by glycosyltransferases (GTs). The acceptor substrate of glycosyltransferases vary widely, the donor substrate is almost always an activated sugars, with the most common activated species being NDP sugars. Landomycin A and landomycin E, both produced by different Streptomyces strains, belong to the angucycline type of natural products and possesses strong antitumor activities, in particular against prostate cancer cell lines. Detailed studies on the biosynthesis of the hexasaccharide side chain of landomycin A revealed that four glycosyltransferases are responsible for the formation of the side chain. LanGT2 is the priming glycosyltransferase connecting D-olivose to the landomycin aglycon (landomycinone) and LanGT3 is the olivosyltransferase responsible for the transfer of the fourth sugar moiety. LanGT1 is an iteratively acting olivosyltransferase catalyzing the attachment of the second and the fifth sugar and LanGT4 is an iteratively acting rhodinosyltransferase attaching the third and sixth sugar during landomycin A biosynthesis. Three glycosyltransferases are responsible for the formation of landomycin E in S. globisporus. Here LndGT2 is the priming glycosyltransferase, LndGT1 catalyzes the attachment of the second sugar and LndGT4 attaches the third sugar. We have shown that LndGT4 can not act twice during landomycin biosynthesis. The aim of studies was to detect amino acids responsible for the iterative work of LanGT4 and introduce them into LndGT4. We were able to design a gene encoding an iteratively working enzyme and Mr. Gene did the synthesis.
Thank you Mr. Gene!
Wikification of Genes – next Effort
Have you noticed, yet, that the wwweb has swollen up like people’s bellies after Christmas? As an example, take the ten thousands of wikis that congest the virtual world. Each of them is an epitome of wisdom (well, let’s face it: most wikis are as superfluous as the fifth leg of an antelope).
Recently, the wiki universe got another member and surprisingly, it could make an impact. “Gene wiki”, a project of Californian researchers around Jon W. Huss (San Diego State University) and Andrew I. Su (Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, San Diego), is an incomplete attempt “evolved out of the existing Wikipedia framework” and “several other gene wikis that already exist [but have a poor] user base and [poor] search engine rankings”.
Check the relevant PLoS paper by Huss et al.
Do we really need this “Gene wiki” thing? Don’t we have enough gene and model organism portals, yet, such as Entrez Gene, Ensembl and Flybase?
In my opinion this “Gene wiki” effort could emerge as a huge success. Flybase and Co. are complex stuff intended for very few experienced scientists, whereas the new born “Gene wiki” baby could attract a more manifold mixture of interested people.
We should never forget: many an interested greenhorn is tomorrow’s researcher.
