Frontlines

Frontlines Image © 2002 Nature Publishing Group Seeing cancer in real time? Researchers at University of California's Jonsson Cancer Center in Los Angeles have developed the first viral 'searchlight' that can hunt down prostate metastases, including those too small to appear on conventional detection scans (J.Y. Adams et al., "Visualization of advanced human prostate cancer lesions in living mice by a targeted gene transfer vector and optical imaging," Nature Medicine, 8:891-7, August 2002). The team engineered a disabled adenovirus to 'light up' when it detected prostate cancer cells based on the prostate-specific antigen protein in mice. Using luciferase and a charged-coupled device, the researchers watched as the prostate-targeted virus located prostate cancer cells in primary tumors, as well as distant metastases in the lungs and spines of laboratory mice, making them appear as hot spots. "We can deliver a targeted virus into a lab model and demonstrate that it is expressed only in prostate cancer cells," says Lily Wu, the report's lead author. "This new method to detect and monitor cancer spread early on will eventually be developed as a therapeutic tool," Wu says. "The idea would be to deliver a toxic gene to the cancer that would not harm healthy cells." Physicians could also use this method to monitor and assess how growing cancers respond to various treatments in real time. Human trials could begin in three years. --A.J.S. Rayl Photo Courtesy of FASEB Sign-in at the lobby If all of Steven L. Teitelbaum's lobbying efforts go as well as his first, his tenure as president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) should be a roaring success. Teitelbaum, professor of pathology at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, officially took office July 1 and immediately found himself in the midst of a congressional fight to keep biodefense-related research under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rather than under the proposed Department of Homeland Security. So far, so good: A House select committee adopted language ensuring that decisions about funding and setting research priorities stay with the HHS. Teitelbaum expects FASEB's biggest challenge of the next year to be retaining the funding momentum for the National Institutes of Health; he calls for an 8% to 10% increase. "And if it doesn't happen, we're going to be back where we were before, in circumstances where labs will be closing down. We'll lose another generation of young scientists. We will have, in a sense, achieved nothing." He also criticizes the possible moratorium on therapeutic cloning, an action recently advocated by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) and a majority of the members of the president's Council on Bioethics. If therapeutic cloning research is put on hold, Teitelbaum warns, researchers will move elsewhere. "I don't think this is hyperbole: this may be the most important biological technology that's come along in a very long time." --Eugene Russo Photo Courtesy of Nova Corp Bearing down on Huntington Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) is a component of bile acid in black bears. It reduces and delays the onset of Huntington disease by inhibiting apoptosis caused by the accumulation of huntingtin protein fragments (C.D. Keene et al., "Tauroursodeoxycholic acid, a bile acid, is neuroprotective in a transgenic animal model of Huntington's disease," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99:100671-6, Aug. 6, 2002). The treatment reduced neuropathy and some associated behavioral problems, but bear in mind, this has been shown only in transgenic mice and rats. TUDCA inhibits the apoptotic pathway in mitochondria by reducing the release of cytochrome c, which activates membrane-destabilizing caspases. Of note is the absence of side effects caused by the bile acid, found endogenously in humans. Alas, the research has attracted misfired criticism. There is a black market for black-bear bile, which has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine as a therapeutic agent for fever, liver illnesses, and sore eyes. The news media have reported Chinese bear farms, where the bile is painfully 'milked' from the gall bladders of captive bears. No bears were hurt in the making of this study, insists Clifford Steer, professor of medicine, genetics, and cell biology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. "We're buying UDCA (ursodeoxycholic acid) and its analogs from chemical vendors and making [TUDCA] ourselves." --Hal Cohen Image: Erica Johnson Sequencing the next Secretariat For centuries horse breeders have relied on experience, savvy, and occasional dumb luck to win big at the track. Geneticist Stephen Harrison wants to add his specialty to that list, hoping to make champion breeding a more exact science through his Kent, UK-based company, Thoroughbred Genetics. For a few hundred pounds, the price of traditional pedigree advice, Harrison will scan the chromosomal DNA of a thoroughbred for about 50 genetic markers that indicate the variability in its genetic make-up. "We can tell how genetically healthy a horse is, and its ability to stamp its progeny with similar characteristics," Harrison says. Banu Chowdhary, a principal investigator working on the Horse Genome Project at Texas A&M, says many breeders will be hesitant to buck traditional breeding methods, but others may be tempted to come around. "If genomics can do the same with horses as with other animals, a new generation of breeders will accept genomics as well," Chowdhary says. Cheryl Kellerman, owner of the Michigan Sport Horse Breeding Farm in Laingsburg, says, "For the price, it's certainly worth seeing what you can find out." --Hal Cohen Benchtop nanotech University of Colorado researchers are working on a different wavelength. Scientists in the laboratory of Henry Kapteyn and Margaret Murnane have developed a benchtop-sized light source that could allow real-time detection of chemical, physical, and biological processes taking place in the femtosecond time scale (R.A. Bartels et al., "Generation of spatially coherent light at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths," Science, 297:376-8, July 19, 2002). Using a technique called higher harmonic generation, the process creates a spatially coherent, well-directed beam of light in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength range. "[That's] a region of the spectrum where you can't very easily directly make a laser," says Kapteyn. "It's a tremendously powerful technique that will have an impact on semiconductor technology ... biosensors, [and] nanofluidics systems used for characterizing or performing functions on biological samples," says Filbert Bartoli, program director of electronics, photonics, and device technologies at the National Science Foundation, which funded the research in part. Applications include manufacture of electronic chips, and nanoscale holography and microscopy. Kapteyn adds that the system is a very practical research tool that actually works. "We run these things continuously and do lots of different experiments with them. And that's a real change from other light sources in this region of the spectrum," he explains. For example, Kapteyn's lab recently detected the motion of oxygen molecules on a platinum surface at the subpicosecond timescale using the device. --Aileen Constans Image: Erica Johnson Alien list Uncle Sam will track foreign postdoctorate trainees and students using a new central online registration system introduced last month. The federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is open for preliminary enrollment for institutions approved by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). All schools that admit foreign students must enroll by January 2003. "Schools are required to keep track of foreign students," says Bill Strassberger, an INS spokesman. "They are given a lot of authority ... we just need to find a way to ensure that's being done." SEVIS was approved as a part of the Immigration Reform Act of 1996, and the INS tested it at several universities before initiating Web-based registration (www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/services/tempbenefits/sevp.htm). Previously, institutions kept their own paper-based records of students, which the INS could review. The SEVIS database is designed to allow schools to load and update large batches of information, but some glitches still need to be resolved. Academics are more concerned about whether foreign governments will reciprocate and whether the federal government will use the information prudently. "We need to be careful that we use information wisely, carefully, and judiciously to actually protect this country," says Marjory Gooding, director of foreign scholars at California Institute of Technology. "Using it carelessly, too broadly or inappropriately is never a good thing; it diminishes our freedom." --Paula Park

Frontlines

Frontlines

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of