Drugs to fix “misfolded” proteins could cure a range of diseases

Proteins adopt their functional three-dimensional structure by the folding of a linear chain of amino acids. Gene mutation can cause this folding process to go awry, resulting in “misfolded” proteins that are inactive or, in worse cases, exhibit modified or toxic functionality. This is the cause of a wide range of diseases, but researchers have developed a technique that fixes these misfolded proteins, allowing them to perform their intended function, thereby providing a potential cure for a number of diseases.

Up until relatively recently, scientists believed that misfolded proteins that were inactive were intrinsically non-functional. However, it was discovered that their inactivity was due to the cell’s quality control system misrouting them within the cell. Drugs called “pharmacoperones,” which get their name from their ability to act as so-called “protein chaperones,” have the ability to enter cells and fix the misfolded proteins so they can be routed correctly, thus restoring their functionality.

Although this process has been observed under a microscope in recent years, a team led by P. Michael Conn, Ph.D. while at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has become the first to demonstrate it in a living laboratory animal. The team was able to cure mice of a disease that makes the males unable to father offspring. Because the identical disease also occurs in humans, Conn believes the same technique will work in people.

The team says neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, as well as certain types of diabetes, inherited cataracts and cystic fibrosis are just a few of the diseases that could potentially be cured using the new approach.

Conn, who is now at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), and his team are now looking to conduct clinical trials to see if the new drug treatment does indeed work in humans.

The team, which included Jo Ann Janovick, Douglas Stocco, Ph.D. and Pulak Manna, Ph.D., from TTUHSC, Richard R. Behringer, Ph.D. from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and M. David Stewart, Ph.D. from the University of Houston, will have their work published this week in the early online edition of the proceeding of the National Academy of sciences.

Trapping Carbon Dioxide: Carbon Capture Technology

Carbon capture has actually been in use for years. The oil and gas industries have used carbon capture for decades as a way to enhance oil and gas recovery . Only recently have we started thinking about capturing carbon for environmental reasons.

Currently, most research focuses on carbon capture at fossil fuel-powered energy plants, the source of the majority of man-made CO2 emissions. Many of these power plants rely on coal to create energy, and the burning of coal emits CO2 into the atmosphere. Some researchers envision a future where all new power plants employ carbon capture.

There are three main steps to carbon capture and storage (CCS) — trapping and separating the CO2 from other gases, transporting this captured CO2 to a storage location, and storing that CO2 far away from the atmosphere (underground or deep in the ocean). Let’s take a more detailed look at the trapping and separation process:

Carbon is taken from a power plant source in three basic ways — post-combustion, precombustion and oxy-fuel combustion. A fossil fuel power plant generates power by burning fossil fuel (coal, oil or natural gas), which generates heat that turns into steam. That steam turns a turbine connected to an electricity generator. We call the process that turns the turbine combustion.

Smoke and steam vapour from electric power station in New York

With precombustion carbon capture,­ CO2 is trapped before the fossil fuel is burned. That means the CO2 is trapped before it’s diluted by other flue gases. Coal, oil or natural gas is heated in pure oxygen, resulting in a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This mix is then treated in a catalytic converter with steam, which then produces more hydrogen, along with carbon dioxide. These gases are fed into the bottom of a flask. The gases in the flask will naturally begin to rise, so a chemical called amine is poured into the top. The amine binds with the CO2, falling to the bottom of the flask. The hydrogen continues rising, up and out of the flask. Next, the amine/CO2 mixt­ure is heated. The CO2 rises to the top for collection, and the amine drops to the bottom for reuse. The excess hydrogen also can be used for other energy production processes.

Precombustion carbon capture is already in use for natural gas, and provides a much higher concentration of CO2 than post-combustion. The precombustion process is lower in cost, but it’s not a retrofit for older power plant generators. As with post-combustion, precombustion carbon capture can prevent 80 to 90 percent of a power plant’s emissions from entering the atmosphere.

With oxy-fuel combustion carbon capture, the power plant burns fossil fuel in oxygen. This results in a gas mixture comprising mostly steam and CO2. The steam and carbon dioxide are separated by cooling and compressing the gas stream. The oxygen required for this technique increases costs, but researchers are developing new techniques in hopes of bringing this cost down. Oxy-fuel combustion can prevent 90 percent of a power plant’s emissions from entering the atmosphere.

After carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured, the next step is transporting it to a storage site. The current method of transporting CO2 is through a pipeline. Pipelines have been in use for decades, and large volumes of gases, oil and water flow through pipelines every day. Carbon dioxide pipelines are an existing part of the U.S. infrastructure — in fact, there are more than 1,500 miles (2,414 km) of CO2 pipelines in the U.S. today, mostly for enhancing oil production. You can put a pipeline just about anywhere — underground or underwater — with depths ranging from a few feet to a mile.

An engineer overlooks the operation of Germany’s first underground storage plant for CO2

USING CARBON CAPTURE FOR EMISSION-FREE CARS

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers think they have found a way to create a zero-emissions car — one free of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions. They envision hydrogen-powered cars with on-board processors to separate the hydrogen and the CO2. The recycled hydrogen would continue powering the vehicle, while the CO2 would be stored in liquid form until its removal at a fueling station. Researchers are working on a long-term strategy where the car’s engine would recycle the CO2 as well, creating a closed-loop system.

 

Smart syringe turns bright red to warn of prior use

The ABC Syringe is embedded with ink that turns color when exposed to air as a way to warn caregivers that the syringe has been used.

First, the bad news: As much as 40 percent of the world’s 40 billion injections administered every year are with unsterile, reused syringes, according to the World Health Organization.

Fortunately, people are working on better, tamper-proof syringes, and one of those — the ABC Syringe — holds such promise it is a finalist at this year’s Index Awards in Denmark.

The syringe, designed by Dr. David Swann of Huddersfield University in England, comes in a nitrogen-filled pack, which ensures that the syringe is clear. But when exposed to air, the special ink in the syringe’s barrel absorbs the carbon dioxide and, after 60 seconds of exposure, turns the barrel of the syringe a bright red to warn that it is now “used.”

Unsafe injections causes 5 percent of all new HIV cases, 32 percent of all Hepatitis B cases, and 40 percent of Hepatitis C cases, according to WHO. And this isn’t purely the result of IV drug users sharing needles; so-called syringe scavengers in places like India scrape out a living selling used syringes to hospitals that are desperate to cut costs when giving vaccinations, blood transfusions, and other medical services that require syringes.

“When you compare a sterile syringe just out of its packaging with a syringe that’s been washed, how do you determine the difference?” Swann recently said in a CNN interview. “We conceived an intelligent ink that, if exposed to air by taking it out of the package or if the package is breached, would activate it and turn it red.”

While Swann acknowledges that the concept would require a public information campaign — “don’t use the red syringe” ought to do it — the ABC has a serious advantage over previous “safety syringe” iterations in that it adds only 1 percent to the retail cost instead of 200 percent.

Swann’s work is already paying off in India, where he recently tested the syringe. (Of the four to five billion injections administered every year in India, at least 2.5 billion are considered unsafe.) Not only did 100 percent of those involved accurately identify red syringes as dangerous, but that cohort included both literate and illiterate men, women, and children.

Swann estimates that within five years of widespread use his syringe should help prevent 700,000 unsafe injections and save $130 million in medical costs, not to mention reduce the 1.3 million deaths that result every year from unsafe injection practices.