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| SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY |
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Gene
therapy to offer heart patients new lease of life Soon,
smartphones that change shape to fit function Prof Yash
Pal This
Universe |
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Gene therapy to offer heart patients new lease of life THE first attempt in Britain to treat heart failure patients with gene therapy is to begin within weeks, as part of study aimed at improving the lives of up to a million people in the UK who suffer the debilitating and potentially fatal condition. Two clinical trials are planned for a few dozen British patients who will be deliberately exposed to a virus carrying a synthetic copy of a human gene known to be involved in boosting heartbeat. The first trial will be carried out at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow. The patients will be part of a group of 200 from around the world who will have the virus injected via a cardiac catheter inserted through a vein in the leg. A second trial at the Harefield and Papworth hospitals will be based entirely within the UK and involve 24 patients with chronic heart failure who are already fitted with an “artificial heart” known as a left ventricular assist device, which helps to pump blood around the body. The aim in both trials is to inject additional copies of a healthy gene, known to be responsible for a key protein involved in regulating the rhythmic contraction of the heart muscle. It is hoped that the extra genes will remain active within a patient’s heart for many months or even years. Scientists believe the approach could lead to a significant improvement in the efficiency of the diseased heart to pump blood around the body – so improving the quality of life of thousands of patients with progressive heart failure who develop serious ailments as well as severe fatigue. Scientists warned that it will still be several years before the technique can be made widely available. They do not want to raise hopes unduly as many previous gene therapy trials on patients with a range of other illnesses have failed to live up to expectations. However, the heart researchers said they are optimistic that the gene technique will improve the quality of life in at least some of the patients, who would otherwise suffer deteriorating health and life expectancy — a third of patients die within a year of diagnosis. “Once heart failure starts, it progresses into a vicious cycle where the pumping becomes weaker and weaker, as each heart cell simply cannot respond to the increased demand,” said Alexander Lyon, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton. “Our goal is to fight back against heart failure by targeting and reversing some of the critical molecular changes arising in the heart when it fails.” The gene-therapy trial involves the injection of a harmless virus, called adeno-associated virus, which has been genetically modified with the SERCA2a gene responsible for a protein that stimulates contraction of heart-muscle cells. Dr Lyon said extensive safety work has already been conducted on the virus and it has not been found to cause health problems in other gene therapy patients. Once the virus has delievered the SERCA2a into the muscle cells, it is quickly degraded, he said. Professor Sian Harding of Imperial College London said that extensive research on the SERCA2a gene has shown that it can be safely inserted into heart-muscle cells with the effect of boosting the size and speed of contraction. “It’s been a painstaking, 20-year process to find the right gene and make a treatment that works, but we’re thrilled to be working with cardiologists to set up human trials that could help people living with heart failure,” Professor Harding said. Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said gene therapy shows great promise in providing a new way to treat heart failure, but warned that there is still a long way to go. “There was a terrific fanfare around gene therapy about 10 to 15 years ago. It was going to cure everything and, like all things in science, it wasn’t that simple,” he said. “This project is a great example of the slow burn of good laboratory science translating into potential clinical treatment. We don’t know if it’s going to work yet, we all hope that it will.” — The Independent
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Soon, smartphones that change shape to fit function IMAGINE a cellphone that bends to block a snooping bystander from reading your private messages! Researchers, including an Indian-origin scientist, have developed prototypes for Gen-Next shape-shifting smartphones and mobile devices that can change form on-demand. The research introduces the term ‘shape resolution’ and its ten features, to describe the resolution of an interactive device, in addition to display and touch resolution. The research, led by Dr Anne Roudaut and Professor Sriram Subramanian, from the University of Bristol’s Department of Computer Science, have used ‘shape resolution’ to compare the resolution of six prototypes the team have built using the latest technologies in shape changing material, such as shape memory alloy and electro active polymer. One example of a device is the team’s concept of Morphees, self-actuated flexible mobile devices that can change shape on-demand to better fit the many services they are likely to support. The team believes Morphees will be the next generation of mobile devices, where users can download applications that embed a dedicated form factor, for instance, the “stress ball app” that collapses the device in on itself or the “game app” that makes it adopt a console-like shape. “The interesting thing about our work is that we are a step towards enabling our mobile devices to change shape on-demand,” Roudaut, research assistant in the Department of Computer Science’s Bristol Interaction and Graphics group, said. “Imagine downloading a game application on the app-store and that the mobile phone would shape-shift into a console-like shape in order to help the device to be grasped properly. “The device could also transform into a sphere to serve as a stress ball, or bend itself to hide the screen when a password is being typed so passers-by can’t see private information,” said Roudaut. By comparing the shape resolution of their prototypes, the researchers have created insights to help designers towards creating high shape resolution Morphees. In future, the team hopes to build higher shape resolution Morphees by investigating the flexibility of materials. They are also interested in exploring other kinds of deformations that the prototypes did not explore, such as porosity and stretchability. — PTI
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This Universe How did the term 'greenhouse effect' get its name? The term ‘greenhouse’ got its name because it was an environment enclosed in transparent walls and with a roof made of clear plastic or glass. As a result, it became warm and humid during the day even in very cold climate, and because of trapped solar energy it allowed green plants to grow inside. In other words, it became a greenhouse — hence the term ‘greenhouse effect’. In physics, why are we taught about the workings of the simple pendulum, properties of gases, etc? How is such knowledge useful in real life? In the last edition of Science Tribune, by oversight I made a mistake in answering the above question. Here is the correct answer: Please do not be so impatient. It would be silly to try to teach you about working of a jet engine without going through some preliminaries. Similarly, if you want to understand why it is cold on mountains, you will have to learn about the behaviour of gases along with atmospheric pressure. I hope you got curious very early about the principle that allows a grandfather clock to keep time. I discovered the importance of allowing my arms to swing freely while walking with a ‘gadavi’ full of milk, clutched at the rim with fingers of my right hand, without spilling the milk. I was then a mere nine years old, but I intuitively understood the property of simple harmonic motion without being taught. I had become rather clever, quite accidentally! Readers can e-mail questions to Prof Yash Pal at palyash.pal@gmail.com
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Trends FRANKFURT: Space junk such as debris from rockets must be removed from the Earth's orbit to avoid crashes that could cost satellite operators millions of euros and knock out mobile and GPS networks, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. At the current density of debris, there will be an in-orbit collision about every five years, however research presented at a conference hosted by ESA in Germany showed that an increase in such junk made more collisions likely in the future. US returns smuggled Tyrannosaurus skeleton to Mongolia WASHINGTON: A 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton from the Gobi Desert that was smuggled to the US in pieces and auctioned for more than $1 million was returned this week by the US government to Mongolia. The huge Tyrannosaurus bataar's skull was on display at a repatriation ceremony near the United Nations in New York, where officials of the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and the US Immigration and Customers Enforcement formally turned over the nearly complete skeleton to Mongolian officials. Telescope spots distant planets suitable for habitation CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have found the best candidates yet for habitable worlds beyond the solar system, including a pair of potentially life-friendly planets orbiting the same star, officials said. The planets join a list of about 700 confirmed extra-solar planets discovered since 1995. — Reuters |
Synthetic
virus that can boost heartbeat will be injected into sufferers for
breakthrough trial
