Tag: antibiotics

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Hildegard Kaulen in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports from the 61st Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates on the need for novel antibiotics. She features the talk of Thomas A. Steitz from Yale University on ribosomes and novel antibiotics. Steitz in 2009 received the chemistry nobel prize for the structure determination of ribosomes together with Ada Yonath and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. This discovery has led to novel insights on antibiotics binding to these cellular organelles – an important prerequisite for the design of novel antibiotics as bacterial ribosomes still are the most important targets for antibiotics. Among others, the scientists learned that the larger the contact area of ribosomes and an antibiotic, the more mutations are necessary to evade the binding and anti-microbial activity of the compound. Steitz therefore recommends linking antibiotics. He also co-founded a company, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, which is designing novel antibiotics by structure-based design. Its most advanced compound successfully completed a Phase II study this year.

Richard Friebe, also in FAZ, reports on a breakthrough in synthetic biology accomplished by a team of German, French and Dutch scientists and published in Angewandte Chemie. Other than Craig Venter, who rebuilt an organism by chemically synthesizing its DNA, the group designed a partially artificial organism. Using automated selection, the researchers transformed an E. coli strain unable to synthesize thymine nucleotides into an organism incorporating the artificial thymine analogue 5-chlorouracil instead of thymine into its entire DNA. The goal of the project was to demonstrate that it is possible to develop a generic technology for evolving the chemical constitution of microbial populations by using the simplest possible algorithms. Members of the team recently co-founded Heurisko USA Inc.

Die Welt reports on novel insights into the medical role of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium living in the human stomach and known for its ability to cause gastritis, gastric ulcer and stomach cancer. Christian Taube from the University of Mainz and colleagues from Zurich University recently published findings that early infections with Helicobacter can protect against allergic asthma. In newborn mice, an early infection impaired maturation of dendritic cells in the lung and increased enrichment of regulatory T cells responsible for oppressing asthma. Resistance is lost once Helicobacter is eradicated with antibiotics. The researchers therefore think that the increase of allergic asthma may be caused by today’s widespread use of antibiotics.

Type 2 diabetes can be cured by a strict diet, reports Christina Berndt in Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). In a UK study comprising 11 type 2 diabetics, in 7 of the patients insulin production normalized and the liver started to respond to the hormone properly after they were put on a strict 600 kcal diet for 8 weeks. The cure even worked in patients suffering from diabetes for 4 years and the effects were lasting, provided the patients did not overeat subsequently.

William Pentland in Forbes writes that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a driving force behind a new effort to harness biology as a manufacturing platform. The “Living Foundries” program is designed to fund projects that enable on-demand manufacturing capabilities for the production of advanced materials and devices. “Key to success,” DARPA writes, “will be the democratization of the biological design and manufacturing process, breaking open the field to those outside the biological sciences.” As examples, DARPA mentions next-generation DNA synthesis and assembly technologies, modular genetic parts and systems, and cell-based fabrication systems.

In a Forbes interview conducted by Alex Howard,  Charlie Quinn, director of data integration technology at the Benaroya Research Institute, talks about the necessity of new tools and strategies to cope with today’s data deluge. Quinn, who is dealing with genomics, maintains that it is not only about novel technologies but also about cultural changes to create greater value by sharing data and establishing open source and even open data projects, sharing data much earlier than it is done now. Thereby, novel ideas can be spread earlier. “What we’ve been doing is going around and trying to convince people that we understand they have to keep data private up to a certain point, but let’s try and release as much data as we can as early as we can.”

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Matthew Herper of Forbes this week takes up the issue whether a DNA sequencer can get FDA approval and quotes Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina as saying the company is in talks with FDA to get regulatory clearance to use its technology for medical diagnostics. He also writes about the late Adriana Jenkins, who worked for Celgene and Third Rock Ventures, among others, and died of breast cancer earlier this month. Having been treated as one of the first patients with one of the first personalized drugs, Herceptin, which gave her a decade of life, she calls for a new law that would give drug companies extended monopolies for developing personalized medicines. Her  own last article explaining her plea for supporting personalized medicine by a legislation similar to the Orphan Drug Act  is featured in Forbes, too.

Also in Forbes, Robert Langreth explains  why Novo Nordisk decided to abandon development of diabetes pills and to ramp up insulin production instead – a move highly successful so far.

Dealing with green energy, the Economist reports on the latest efforts to develop artificial leaves for the synthesis of carbohydrate fuels directly from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water. The article features efforts by the Joint Centre for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) in California, Massachusetts-based Sun Catalyx and a group at Massey University in New Zealand lead by Wayne Campbell.
For those of us who already are short-sighted and need reading glasses on top, the New York Times has good news about a new gadget that already hit the US market. Anne Eisenberg reports that with the new device the days of bifocal spectacles may be over soon. The new emPower electronic spectacles have liquid crystals inserted at the bottom of the lens which change refraction by simply touching the frame. As a result, reading power can be easily switched on and off.

Hannah Waters in The Scientist features a new pathway that may be used to develop novel antibiotics, e.g. to combat Staphylococcus infections.  The trick is done by blocking RNA degradation via a small molecule inhibiting the enzyme RNAse P found in gram-positive bacteria. This leads to accumulation of RNA transcripts and their encoded proteins so that the bugs die from chaos.

In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Jörg Altwegg reports about a baby that opened up a fierce ethical debate in France. The boy was conceived after preimplantation diagnosis made clear that he not only did not carry beta thalassemia but that he also was suited as a blood donor for his older sister suffering from the disease. Another ethical debate around human genetics is taken up by  Volker Stollorz in a Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) article not yet online. In the US, researchers have developed a universal gene test able to uncover the genes for hundreds of severe, rare genetic diseases. The test is going to be used for family planning, and couples at risk of conceiving a child with one of those conditions can opt to perform preimplantation diagnosis. However, while some human geneticists warn that the results might overstrain the expertise of human genetic councelors, others already are crazy about using such tests to eliminate all recessive alleles for genetic diseases from the human gene pool.

Finally, Alison McCook in The Scientist claims researchers are punks, because just like in punk music, as they are typified “by a passionate adherence to individualism, creativity and freedom of expression with no regard to established opinions.” To get a taste, she recommends listening to Minor Threat and Nomeansno for a start.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

MacGregor Campbell reports in the New Scientist that DNA can stretch to nearly twice its length without breaking and explains how this feature can lead to the development of new drugs to fight cancer. Ferris Jabr in the same magazine reports about the first discovery of a virus infecting nematode Caenorhabdis elegans, a workhorse of developmental biology. The discovery will now enable biologists to study virus-host interactions in this model organism.

The Economist introduces a technology developed by Planar Energy (Orlando, Florida) which turns rechargeable batteries into thin, solid devices by printing lithium-ion batteries onto sheets of metal or plastic. The magazine quotes the company by saying the cells will be more reliable than conventional lithium-ion cells, will be able to store two to three times more energy in the same weight and will last for tens of thousands of recharging cycles. They could also be made for a third of the cost. The trick is done by using a ceramic electrolyte which can be printed and appears solid while it allows free passage to lithium ions.

Matthew Herper in Forbes reports on PerkinElmer’s entry into the DNA sequencing market by creating a service business. Researchers can send in DNA for sequencing by PerkinElmer and subsequently access and analyze the genetic data in a computer cloud. Focus will be on human exam sequencing. Matthew also features a video interview with Mischa Angrist, author of “Here is a Human Being: At the dawn of personal genomics” about what it means to look at one’s own sequence data and whether these data should be private or be available for science.

Also in Forbes, Robert Langreth introduces research by William DeGrado, of the University of Pennsylvania trying to breath new life in peptide drugs to fight infectious diseases. DeGrado uses supercomputer simulation to create antibiotics that mimic natural ones but are far simpler to produce and more stable. The first drug designed by DeGrado, PMX-30063 by PolyMedix to treat staphylococcus skin infections is now in clinical trials.

The New York Times also deals with infectious diseases. Sindya N. Bhanoo outlines efforts of researchers from seven countries to analyze how a single strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria has morphed over 30 years and spread across the world, as a result of evolutionary pressure by antibiotics and vaccines. Within three decades, the strain turned over about 75% of its genome by recombination and mutation. The study appeared in Science.

German papers feature two stories on drugs that surprisingly show efficacy in indications they have not been developed for: Cinthia Briseno in Der Spiegel reports on a study featured in Science on cancer drug Taxol paclitaxel which is able to stimulate the growth of nerve fibers that have been cut in two. The researchers are now planning clinical studies in paraplegics. Nicola von Lutterotti in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports a Lancet Neurology study on Prozac fluxetin which is able support the recovery from palsy in stroke patients.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Manfred Lindinger takes up the issue whether nanotechnology poses danger to human health and the environment in an article and an interview with Jochen Flasbarth, president of the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt – UBA). Flasbarth points out that UBA’s nanotechnology study published last year, highlighting gaps in knowledge about potential health hazards, was misunderstood by the media and the public as a sweeping warning of all things nano. He also dismisses calls for introducing a label for products containing nanotechnology: “If there is no risk, we don’t need to put up a warning sign.”

Several German papers feature and discuss an ad-hoc statement on preimplantation diagnosis  issued January 18 by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. It was drafted by 13 eminent German academians from biology, medicine, law and philosophy & ethics, among them nobelist Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard. The statement calls for admission of PID under narrowly defined circumstances (high risk of serious monogenic disorder, chromosomal dysfunction, miscarriage or stillbirth). The parliament needs to to regulate PID after the German Federal Supreme Court last year ruled that Germany’s ban on PID was based on misinterpretation of the country’s Embryo Protection Law.

John Tierney in The New York Times provides new insights on people who underwent personal genetic testing to learn about their risk for conditions from obesity to cancer and Alzheimer’s. It is widespread belief among experts and politicians that personal DNA testing needs careful supervision and cannot be offered without expert guidance. The NYT introduces two studies – one follow-up study of about 2,000 people who had a genomewide scan by Navigenics  and one representative sample of 1,500 people – and found that the medical field overestimates the level of psychological anxiety or trauma caused by the results and is way too paternalistic about the tests. One researcher is quoted by saying: “We should recognize that consumers might reasonably want the information for nonmedical reasons. People value it for its own sake, and because they feel more in control of their lives.”

Gardiner Harris reports that the Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharma industry that it has decided to start a federal billion-dollar drug development center. The “National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences” will open in October this year and will beef up early research results by finding leads against new targets or even perform preclinical studies so that projects become attractive to the pharma industry. NIH director Francis S. Collins who is behind the idea, is quoted by NYT as saying: “I am a little frustrated to see how many of the discoveries that do look as though they have therapeutic implications are waiting for the pharmaceutical industry to follow through with them.” In a first step, more than $700 million in research projects from other NIH institutes will be brought together at the new center.

Gina Kolata reports on an FDA advisory committee recommending approval of a new brain scan that can detect the typical plaques in the brains of living Alzheimer disease patients. The test has been developed by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, now a subsidiary of Eli Lilly (see akampioneer, June 24, 2010).

In the New Scientist, Anil Ananthaswamy features findings from Australian researchers suggesting that Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis and maybe other, more common diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes, might be cured by antibiotics and subsequent (re-)colonization of the colon with bacteria from healthy people. The hypothesis was derived from case studies of Parkinson’s patients treated for colon infections, in which the treatment also abated the Parkinson’s symptoms. The researchers from the Center of Digestive Diseases in New South Wales are now planning a pilot study in Parkinson’s patients. Already, neuroanatomists from German Ulm University have suggested in 2003 that Parkinson’s might be caused by a bug that breaks through the mucosal barrier of the GI tract and enters the central nervous system via the vagus nerve (Journal of Neural Transmission, DOI: 10.1007/s00702-002-0808-2).

Linda Geddes reports on how cytokines associated with inflammation can enter the brain under certain circumstances and cause depression. Unfortunately, the article fails to mention German biotech company Affectis which already has Cimicoxib, an anti-inflammatory COX-2 inhibitor, in Phase II trials for the treatment of depression, after researchers discovered that COX-2 inhibitors can alleviate depression.

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