UK drug shows early promise against Alzheimer's

A new drug which shows promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease has been developed by UK scientists.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the drug, CPHPC, removes a protein thought to play a key role in Alzheimer's from the blood.

A team at the University College London found the small molecule drug caused the disappearance of a protein called SAP, thought to be involved in the disease, from the brains of five Alzheimer's patients who took it for three months. Longer and larger scale clinical studies are now being planned.

The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Britain's Alzheimer's Research Trust, which helped fund the research, said the results with the drug, CPHPC, were cause for "cautious optimism," but it was too soon to know for sure if removing SAP from the brain would provide clinical benefit.

"New treatments for Alzheimer's disease are desperately needed, and it's possible that this small molecule could be a future candidate," said Trust Chief Executive Rebecca Wood.

Given the world's aging population and the lack of an effective treatment, new medicines for Alzheimer's are seen as a major untapped opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry.

From BBC and Reuters

£1.8m funding for green car trial

A scheme to trial electric cars in Glasgow has been awarded £1.8 million in Government funding.

Workers from a number of public-sector organisations in Scotland's biggest city will be among the first to test the fleet of green vehicles over the next two years.

The Technology Strategy Board – part of the UK Government's Department for Business – awarded the grant to a consortium led by Glasgow-based Allied Mobility.

The car manufacturer will work alongside Glasgow City Council, ScottishPower, Strathclyde University and Scottish Enterprise to produce 30 Peugeot 207s and 10 Peugeot Eurobus models.

Dundee firm Axeon has been tasked with developing the batteries for the scheme. The firm is one of Europe’s largest independent supplier of lithium-ion battery systems and specialises in providing power sources for electric and hybrid electric vehicles.

The Technology Strategy Board says its role is to stimulate technology-enabled innovation in areas which offer the greatest scope for boosting UK growth and productivity. This is done by promoting, supporting and investing in technology research, development and commercialisation.

The £1.8 million is coming from the board's low-carbon vehicle programme.

Paul Nelson, managing director of Allied Mobility, said: "It is great to have been awarded this funding for a project that will make Glasgow a centre for green transport.

Full story click here

Technology Strategy Board

Royal Society TV

The Royal Society is the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth and is at the cutting edge of scientific progress.

They support many top young scientists, engineers and technologists, influence science policy, debate scientific issues with the public and much more. They are an independent, charitable body which derives its authoritative status from over 1400 Fellows and Foreign Members.

Now after 350 years, you can watch and listen to Royal Society events online, at home, in the office, or on the move.

At royalsociety.tv you can watch live webcasts and online videos of public events and prize lectures feature cutting-edge science, revealing history of science, and the exploration of science and culture. Or you could listen to podcasts on history of science, or review the latest discoveries from our discussion meetings.

Check out the latest video:

Mathematics in the real world: From brain tumours to saving marriages

UK-based research finds common infection role in childhood leukaemia

UK researchers have for the first time identified the molecule that stimulates leukaemia to develop in children. Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research found pre-cancerous cells multiplied when exposed to a molecule produced in the body as a response to infection.

The molecule, TGF, is triggered as a normal response to infection and so the new finding provides the first experimental evidence as to how common infections might trigger childhood leukaemia.

Dr Shabih Syed, Scientific Director at Leukaemia Research says: “Before this study, there had been only circumstantial evidence to implicate infections in the progression from a child carrying pre-leukaemic cells to actually having leukaemia. There was no evidence of the mechanism by which this might happen. While infection is clearly only one factor in triggering progression, this study greatly increases the strength of evidence for its role in the commonest form of childhood leukaemia.”

The research was funded by Leukaemia Research, The Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund, The Institute of Cancer Research and the Medical Research Council.

http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/press_archive/press_releases_2009/12176.shtml

Robot scientist becomes first machine to discover new scientific knowledge

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have created a Robot Scientist which the researchers believe is the first machine to have independently discovered new scientific knowledge. The robot, called Adam, is a computer system that fully automates the scientific process. The work will be published tomorrow (03 April 2009) in the journal Science.

Adam the robot scientist (photo from www.bbsrc.ac.uk)

Prof Ross King, who led the research at Aberystwyth University, said: "Ultimately we hope to have teams of human and robot scientists working together in laboratories".

The scientists at Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge designed Adam to carry out each stage of the scientific process automatically without the need for further human intervention. The robot has discovered simple but new scientific knowledge about the genomics of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an organism that scientists use to model more complex life systems. The researchers have used separate manual experiments to confirm that Adam’s hypotheses were both novel and correct.

"Because biological organisms are so complex it is important that the details of biological experiments are recorded in great detail. This is difficult and irksome for human scientists, but easy for Robot Scientists."

Using artificial intelligence, Adam hypothesised that certain genes in baker’s yeast code for specific enzymes which catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast. The robot then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle.

Adam is a still a prototype, but Prof King’s team believe that their next robot, Eve, holds great promise for scientists searching for new drugs to combat diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis, an infection caused by a type of parasitic worm in the tropics.

Prof King continued: "If science was more efficient it would be better placed to help solve society’s problems. One way to make science more efficient is through automation. Automation was the driving force behind much of the 19th and 20th century progress, and this is likely to continue."

Prof. King and Adam (photo from www.bbsrc.ac.uk)

Read more and watch video: click here

UK-based research brings underground carbon capture a step closer

New research shows that for millions of years carbon dioxide has been stored safely and naturally in underground water in gas fields saturated with the greenhouse gas. The findings - published in Nature yesterday - bring carbon capture and storage a step closer.


Chaffin Ranch geyser, Utah - this geyser erupts from an aquifer naturally saturated with carbon dioxide (picture from www.nerc.ac.uk)

In research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, scientists from the University of Manchester measured the ratios of isotopes of carbon dioxide and noble gases like helium and neon in nine gas fields in North America, China and Europe. These gas fields were naturally filled with carbon dioxide thousands or millions of years ago.

They found that underground water is the major carbon dioxide sink in these gas fields and has been for millions of years.

Dr Stuart Gilfillan, the lead researcher who completed the project at the University of Edinburgh said, "We've turned the old technique of using computer models on its head and looked at natural carbon dioxide gas fields which have trapped carbon dioxide for a very long time.

"By combining two techniques, we've been able to identify exactly where the carbon dioxide is being stored for the first time. We already know that oil and gas have been stored safely in oil and gas fields over millions of years. Our study clearly shows that the carbon dioxide has been stored naturally and safely in underground water in these fields."

Professor Chris Ballentine of the University of Manchester, the project director, said, "The universities of Manchester and Toronto are international leaders in different aspects of gas tracing. By combining our expertise we have been able to invent a new way of looking at carbon dioxide fields. This new approach will also be essential for monitoring and tracing where carbon dioxide captured from coal-fired power stations goes when we inject it underground this is critical for future safety verification."

Read more: click here

New national Genome Centre to underpin food security and animal health

A new national centre to analyse plant, animal and microbial genomes has been announced today by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) will be based on the Norwich Research Park and will provide genome sequencing to underpin advances to improve food security, to protect UK agriculture from exotic animal disease and exploit weaknesses in microbes to develop new ways to kill superbugs. It will also be a centre of excellence in bioinformatics to ensure that the data generated by its genome analysis, and that of other facilities, can be effectively collected and analysed.

TGAC will become operational over the next two months and will be formally opened in June. It will be a BBSRC national centre in partnership with EEDA, Norfolk County Council, South Norfolk Council, Norwich City Council, and the Greater Norwich Development Partnership. BBSRC is providing the majority of the £13.5M investment in the Centre and will underwrite its running costs for several years but the partners are all making significant contributions.

Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Science and Innovation, said: "Genomic technology has enormous promise. The new Genome Analysis Centre will help to develop UK capacity in this area, where we are already a world leader.

"I am delighted that the centre will work closely with industry to develop our economic potential in such disciplines as bioinformatics and metagenomic sequencing."

Read more: click here