Sweep yields leads for new malaria drugs

Researchers hope the studies’ findings will lead to a new generation of antimarial drugs (Source: WEHI/Drew Berry)

A massive screening of chemicals has turned up thousands of compounds that could lead to new drugs in the fight against malaria, according to a pair of studies published today.

Malaria affects a quarter of a billion people worldwide, and claims upward of 850,000 lives every year, particularly children in the poorer nations of Africa and Asia.

Preventative measures such as the use of insecticide-treated bed nets has helped cut infection rates dramatically in some of the worst-hit countries, and treatments based on a class of drugs called artemisinin have sharply reduced mortality.

But the rise of new, drug-resistant strains of the disease could wipe out that progress unless alternative compounds are found, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Multiple targets

An international team of researchers led by R Kiplin Guy of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee combed through more than 300,000 candidate chemicals.

Their study, published in the journal Nature, identified 1100 agents out of more than 300,000 candidates that inhibited growth of the deadly Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes the disease by at least 80%.

A more select subset of 172 compounds all had chemical structures unlike those in existing anti-malarial drugs, according to the study.

The fact that these novel agents acted on different targets in the mosquito-borne parasite could prove crucial in beating back the emerging threat of drug-resistant variants.

As a proof of principle, the researchers showed that one of the compounds was effective in treating malaria in a mouse model, albeit at a very high concentration.

Going public

In a second study, also appearing in Nature, Jose Garcia-Bustos of GlaxoSmithKline and colleagues screened around two million agents in the pharmaceutical giant’s in-house chemical library.

Setting a similar threshold for blocking the parasite’s growth, the researchers uncovered 13,500 promising active compounds.

Significantly, 8000 of them were equally effective against multi-drug resistant P. falciparum parasites.

More than 11,000 of the “hits” were proprietary compounds owned by the drug company, which has taken the unusual step of transferring them to the public domain, where they are available researchers anywhere in the world.

“These reports offer tremendous opportunities to develop the next generation of antimalarial drugs,” says David Fidock, a researcher at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

Also writing in Nature, Fidock cautions that it is only a “starting point,” and that time was running short.

Reference Link
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/05/20/2904634.htm?site=science&topic=latest

Courtesy
ABC

The secrets of the world's most successful football school

“Good God,” murmurs the visiting scout from an English Premier League club, his hungry eyes fixed on the pitch and his jaw practically scraping the grass.

We’re standing on the touchline of arguably the world’s most successful football academy, at the end of a dirt track beside a rather murky lagoon on the scruffy outskirts of Abidjan. On the immaculate training ground, 22 barefoot 12-year-old boys are playing what even I can tell is the most dazzling, intelligent, agile football.

// “I expected good technique,” says the English scout – who insists that I not mention the name of his extremely famous club. “What surprised me is how tactical they are – how aware of space. They’re extraordinary,” he says.

Nearby, Walter Ammann, the Swiss director of Asec Mimosa’s Academy, is smiling serenely. “This is paradise, eh?” he says, looking around him.

Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue, Salomon Kalou, Didier Zokora, Yaya Toure… the list of international stars to have emerged from Asec Mimosa’s Academy is remarkable. But why should one club, and one country have had so much success?

Mr Ammann talks with enormous pride of how the academy nurtures the children. “We try to protect them, and to teach them responsibility, to help them to become men. Some of the boys come here and they can’t even read or write.”

But Mr Ammann then moves on to talk in more general terms about African “attitudes,” how “African bodies are different,” and about the rhythmic training that he’s introduced at the beginning of every day.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England manager, takes a similar line – up to a point. He’s visiting the club during a flying visit to the country, having just agreed to take charge of Ivory Coast’s World Cup team.

“I suppose this is the most successful academy in the world if you look at all the players who started their careers here,” he says. “Africans are strong, physically, naturally strong and quick. Obviously there is a lot of talent in this country. But this academy is top quality, for Africa, and in the world.”

The visiting scout takes a more prosaic view. He points out that the children at the academy train for at least four hours every day. “That’s simply not possible in England. The sun shines all year round here. English kids finish school at three, then it’s dark an hour later. They’re lucky if they get a couple of hours football a week.”

In keeping with the academy’s protective instincts, I’m only allowed to interview one of the students. “Lots of journalists come here, and we don’t want to turn the boys’ heads,” explains Mr Ammann.

Charles Silue, a 15-year-old striker shows me his locker, papered with pictures of football stars.

“I want to play for Barcelona, then for Manchester United,” he says without a trace of cockiness. And it’s Silue, composed, focused and phenomenally talented, who offers what seems to me the best explanation for Ivory Coast’s reputation as the world’s football factory.

“Many young African players just think about money,” he says. “They focus on that. But here we’re taught to think differently – to be responsible and concentrate on our objectives. Football is my passion. The money will follow.”

Reference Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/andrewharding/2010/05/the_secrets_of_the_worlds_most.html

Courtesy

BBC News

Artificial swallowtail butterfly reveals flight secrets

In a bid to find out how a butterfly takes to the air, researchers have built their own artificial version.

They have created a model swallowtail butterfly that can fly just like the real thing.

Swallowtails have large, slow-beating wings that means they fly unlike other butterflies.

Despite these limitations, the model insect proves that swallowtails still achieve forward flight with simple flapping motions, say the researchers.

Details of the artificial butterfly are presented in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, published by the Institute of Physics.

Undulating movements

Swallowtail butterflies have particularly large wings for their body size, and flap them relatively infrequently.

They are also unique among flying insects because their fore wings partly overlap their hind wings.

The lines show an undulating body motion

Because their two sets of wings effectively flap as one, that in theory gives them little control over the aerodynamic forces on their body.

That means their wings are limited to a basic flapping flight, and their bodies are forced to undulate up and down as they fly, say researchers Dr Hiroto Tanaka from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US and Dr Isao Shimoyama from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

But this has been impossible to check in real butterflies, because of the complexity of measuring the various forces acting on their wings and body.

Ornithopter arrives

So Drs Tanaka and Shimoyama decided to build an artificial swallowtail, dubbed an “ornithopter”.

The body is built from balsa wood, and the wings powered by a wire crank driven by a rubber band.

The artificial butterfly up close

The researchers made artificial wings from a thin film of polymer, fabricating them with plastic veins mimicking those of an actual swallowtail butterfly.

That emulated the stiffness distribution of an actual wing.

Overall, the model is the same size and weight as a real swallowtail.

What is more, it can fly forwards just as a real butterfly.

Filming the robot butterfly in high speed helped the researchers calculate the forces acting on its wings and body.

Just as a real swallowtail would, the robot’s body undulated up and down in flight.

SOURCES Visit the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics to read more about the artificial butterfly

This confirmed that the up-down motion of the butterfly’s body is caused by the vertical aerodynamic force of its flapping wings.

However, it also confirms that swallowtails need veins on their wings to achieve stable flight, and do not need to continually adjust them as many others insects do.

Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8694000/8694666.stm

Courtesy
BBC News

Organs of accident victim donated

HOSUR: Organs of an accident victim were donated to a Bangalore hospital recently. Mr. G. Raju (24), hailing from Soodasandiram village near Thaly, met with an accident last Saturday near Uliveeranapalli road while returning after work.

Raju was rushed to Hosur Government Hospital with head injuries. He was then referred to Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore where doctors declared him brain dead.

Hosur Small Scale and Tiny Industries Association (HOSTIA) treasurer V. Gnanasekaran and Jaycees Club, Hosur Brindavan chapter, past president A. Saravanan met Raju’s wife R. Rupa (20) and requested her to donate her husband’s body to those waiting for organ transplantation. After Rupa gave her permission doctors in Sparsh Hospital harvested Raju’s e eyes, heart and liver.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/20/stories/2010052061890500.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

NY skyscraper wins highest "green" certification

(Reuters) – The U.S. Green Building Council gave the Bank of America Tower its highest rating for environmental performance and sustainability on Thursday, meaning New York City’s second-tallest building is also its greenest.

The 54-story building completed in 2008 at a cost of $2 billion became the first commercial high-rise to win the “platinum” certification from the non-profit council that promotes environmentally friendly construction and design.

The certification was based on water and energy efficiency, indoor air quality, the environmental friendliness of construction materials and other criteria.

At 1,200 feet, it is the second tallest building in the city after the Empire State Building. Years before the building opened, Bank of America and developers from the Durst Organization decided to create an example at the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue.

“They came to us and said they wanted to build the largest environmentally responsible building they could. That was our goal from the get-go,” said project architect Serge Appel of Cook+Fox Architects.

The building has its own 4.6-megawatt co-generation plant, and its floor-to-ceiling windows reduce the need for artificial lighting. The roof captures rainwater. Waste water from the sinks is recycled. The men’s rooms even have waterless urinals. The measures save an estimated 8 million to 9 million gallons of water per year.

The steel was made of 87 percent recycled material, and the concrete from 45 percent recycled content — in this case, blast furnace slag.

The project broke ground in 2004, four years before the financial crisis that led to Bank of America acquiring Merrill Lynch and Countrywide, and the accolade comes as Wall Street’s reputation with the public is poor.

“It’s helped with employee morale. In terms of how the financial services industry is seen by the public … a more buoyant economy and lower unemployment will make a bigger difference in our image,” said Anne Finucane, the bank’s global strategy and marketing officer.

Developers say the lower carbon dioxide content in the air helps people avoid that drowsy feeling in the afternoon, and spectacular views from higher floors are enough to keep eyes open.

“There’s a psychological advantage to being able to see outside the building,” architect Appel said. “It’s very different from the way buildings were built in the 1980s with tinted glass windows. It always looked like it was stormy outside.”

Reference Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64J3LW20100520?type=domesticNews

Courtesy
Thomson Reuters