ScienceDaily (July 5, 2012) ? Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a novel biomimetic strategy that delivers life-saving nanotherapeutics directly to obstructed blood vessels, dissolving blood clots before they cause serious damage or even death. This new approach enables thrombus dissolution while using only a fraction of the drug dose normally required, thereby minimizing bleeding side effects that currently limit widespread use of clot-busting drugs.
The research findings, which were published online July 5 in the journal Science, have significant implications for treating major causes of death, such as heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism, that are caused by acute vascular blockage by blood thrombi.
The inspiration for the targeted vascular nanotherapeutic approach came from the way in which normal blood platelets rapidly adhere to the lining of narrowed vessels, contributing to the development of atherosclerotic plaques. When vessels narrow, high shear stresses provide a physical cue for circulating platelets to stick to the vessel wall selectively in these regions. The vascular nanotherapeutic is similarly about the size of a platelet, but it is an aggregate of biodegradable nanoparticles that have been coated with the clot-busting drug, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Much like when a wet ball of sand breaks up into individual grains when it is sheared between two hands, the aggregates selectively dissociate and release tPA-coated nanoparticles that bind to clots and degrade them when they sense high shear stress in regions of vascular narrowing, such as caused by blood clot formation.
Disruption of normal blood flow to the heart, lung, and brain due to thrombosis is one of the leading causes of death and long-term adult disability in the developing world. Today, patients with pulmonary embolism, strokes, heart attacks and other types of acute thrombosis leading to near-complete vascular occlusion, are most frequently treated in an acute care hospital setting using systemic dosages of powerful clot-dissolving drugs. Because these drugs can cause severe and often fatal bleeding as they circulate freely throughout the body, the size of the dosage given to any patient is limited because efficacy must be balanced against risk.
The new shear-activated nanotherapeutic has the potential to overcome these efficacy limitations. By targeting and concentrating drug at the precise site of the blood vessel obstruction, the Wyss team has been able to achieve improved survival in mice with occluded lung vessels with less than 1/50th of the normal therapeutic dose, which should translate into fewer side effects and greater safety. This raises the possibility that, in the future, an emergency technician might be able immediately administer this nanotherapeutic to anyone suspected of having a life-threatening blood clot in a vital organ before the patient even reached the hospital.
The inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional collaborative research team, which was led by Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber M.D., Ph.D. and Wyss Technology Development Fellow Netanel Korin, Ph.D., also included Wyss postdoctoral Fellow Mathumai Kanapathipillai, Ph.D. as well as Benjamin D. Matthews, Marilena Crescente, Alexander Brill, Tadanori Mammoto, Kaustabh Ghosh, Samuel Jurek, Sidi A. Bencherif, Deen Bhatta, Ahmet U. Coskun, Charles L. Feldman, and Denisa D. Wagner from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Northeastern University. Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston, and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Commenting on the work, Ingber noted that "the vascular nanotherapeutic we developed that selectively becomes activated in regions of high shear stress, much like living platelets do, is a wonderful example of how we at the Wyss Institute take inspiration from biology, and how biomimetic strategies can lead to new and unexpected solutions to age-old problems that existing technologies can't address."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Netanel Korin, Mathumai Kanapathipillai, Benjamin D. Matthews, Marilena Crescente, Alexander Brill, Tadanori Mammoto, Kaustabh Ghosh, Samuel Jurek, Sidi A. Bencherif, Deen Bhatta, Ahmet U. Coskun, Charles L. Feldman, Denisa D. Wagner, Donald E. Ingber. Shear-Activated Nanotherapeutics for Drug Targeting to Obstructed Blood Vessels. Science, July 5 2012 DOI: 10.1126/science.1217815
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Hooray! It looks like Google, Samsung, and Sprint were able to iron out the difficulties in redistributing the closed source radio code for the Nexus S 4G and it's now officially a part of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) again! Says Jean-Baptiste Queru, Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project --
We've been able to resolve the issues around Nexus S 4G, and we can now properly distribute its CDMA and WiMAX binaries. That allows Nexus S 4G to work with AOSP just as well as Nexus S.
As a result, we now consider Nexus S 4G to be fully supported in AOSP,with no restrictions. Overall, Nexus S is the preferred platform for AOSP work.
Enjoy we will. Welcome back to the family, Nexus S 4G. We've missed you. You might remember back in February, support for CDMA devices was dropped from the AOSP. Dan Morrill explained that this was because binaries for proprietary radio code was signed by a different private key, and projects built from the AOSP would use the standard platform key. This would lead to all sorts of difficulties, and official support for the devices had to be dropped. Legal issues tend to conflict with open-source more often than not. It seems that the issues have been resolved, and Google can now deliver binaries with the correct key, and the Crespo 4G is alive and kicking in AOSP.
It's worth noting that there's no mention of the Sprint Galaxy Nexus, which uses LTE for the 4G network in place of WiMax. Hopefully, those issues can be resolved as well and we're one big happy Nexus family again.
Rising plasma offers clues to sun stormsPublic release date: 3-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice researcher part of team that used Doppler shifts to ID phenomenon; may help predict space weather
Doppler measurements that help track storms on Earth may also be useful for understanding storms on the sun.
A Rice University astrophysicist is part of an international team that combined Doppler techniques with images and data from a space-based telescope to observe, for the first time, loops of 1,800,000-degree Fahrenheit plasma flowing up from the sun's surface at more than 12 miles per second.
The loops, rooted in active regions near sunspots and guided by the sun's magnetic field, arch over the sun and may be the first signs of trouble spots, where plasma undergoes "impulsive heating," according to the researchers. They expect their findings will help scientists understand the genesis of solar flares and coronal mass ejections solar storms that threaten satellites orbiting Earth and power transmission grids on the ground.
Rice's Stephen Bradshaw and colleagues in India and the United Kingdom reported their results today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
They wrote that Doppler measurements drawn from images taken by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) aboard the Hinode solar satellite show the first observation of a "warm loop" in which plasma rises from the surface of the sun rather than sinks back into it.
In visible-light Doppler, objects moving away from the viewer are shifted red, while objects moving closer shift blue. That fact has long been useful to astrophysicists judging how fast other stars and even galaxies are moving in an expanding universe. But in previous observations of active regions on the sun, warm loops like the one observed by Bradshaw and his colleagues have only been seen to shift red and, therefore, the plasma was thought to be sinking.
The prevalence of red shifts led to the belief that heating is taking place high in the sun's atmosphere and leading to the evaporation of material from near the surface into the atmosphere that then flows back down as it cools. That may be true, Bradshaw said, but it leaves some important questions unanswered: What causes the heating? Where is the evidence for plasma rising from the surface into the atmosphere?
The new observations will help to answer these questions, he said.
"The blue shifts are the signature, or 'smoking gun,' of plasma flowing up into the atmosphere," said Bradshaw, Rice's William V. Vietti Junior Chair of Space Physics and an assistant professor of physics and astronomy. "They show that the fastest up-flows are found near the surface of the sun. This information gives us clues to the location where the heating is taking place, how fast it is and how much energy is needed."
"The sun governs the environment in which we live, and it is the so-called solar active regions that drive extreme conditions leading to the explosive flares and the huge eruptions; understanding these active regions is absolutely critical for the study of what we now call space weather," said Richard Harrison, head of space physics and chief scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. "The work published in this paper is a key element of that work, applying innovative analyses to the observations from the U.K.-led Hinode/EIS instrument."
Bradshaw noted the sun is fast approaching the part of its 11-year cycle when flares and coronal mass ejections occur most frequently. "These events present the most danger to satellites, power grids and even to airliners on flight paths in polar regions," Bradshaw said. "This period is called solar maximum, and we will become ever more reliant on this technology during every subsequent solar cycle.
"One of the aims of solar research is to develop a space-weather forecasting capability, whereby solar storms can be predicted by detecting their signatures before they occur at the sun," he said. "This is much like monitoring depressions as precursors to tropical storms and hurricanes, but space-weather forecasters will monitor active regions. Accurate forecasts of solar storms will give us the maximum possible time to prepare for their arrival at Earth and to mitigate their effects.
"Our work will contribute to this aim by leading to a better understanding of the physics of active regions."
###
Co-authors are principal investigator Durgesh Tripathi of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Ganeshkhind, India; and Helen Mason, assistant director of research, and Giulio Del Zanna, an advanced fellow in the atomic astrophysics group, both in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge.
The Hinode satellite was launched in 2006 by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in collaboration with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, NASA and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the United Kingdom. The European Space Agency and Norwegian Space Centre also supported the research.
Read the abstract at http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/754/1/L4
Related links:
Daily SDO/AIA images and movies: http://sdowww.lmsal.com/
Hinode/EIS website: http://msslxr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk:8080/SolarB/
iSun|trek website: http://www.suntrek.org/blog
Left, image of hot (1.8-million degree Fahrenheit) active region loops. Right, flows of solar plasma (blue shifts). Credit: Left: SDO/AIA (NASA); right: Hinode/EIS (JAXA, NASA, ESA and STFC)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rising plasma offers clues to sun stormsPublic release date: 3-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice researcher part of team that used Doppler shifts to ID phenomenon; may help predict space weather
Doppler measurements that help track storms on Earth may also be useful for understanding storms on the sun.
A Rice University astrophysicist is part of an international team that combined Doppler techniques with images and data from a space-based telescope to observe, for the first time, loops of 1,800,000-degree Fahrenheit plasma flowing up from the sun's surface at more than 12 miles per second.
The loops, rooted in active regions near sunspots and guided by the sun's magnetic field, arch over the sun and may be the first signs of trouble spots, where plasma undergoes "impulsive heating," according to the researchers. They expect their findings will help scientists understand the genesis of solar flares and coronal mass ejections solar storms that threaten satellites orbiting Earth and power transmission grids on the ground.
Rice's Stephen Bradshaw and colleagues in India and the United Kingdom reported their results today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
They wrote that Doppler measurements drawn from images taken by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) aboard the Hinode solar satellite show the first observation of a "warm loop" in which plasma rises from the surface of the sun rather than sinks back into it.
In visible-light Doppler, objects moving away from the viewer are shifted red, while objects moving closer shift blue. That fact has long been useful to astrophysicists judging how fast other stars and even galaxies are moving in an expanding universe. But in previous observations of active regions on the sun, warm loops like the one observed by Bradshaw and his colleagues have only been seen to shift red and, therefore, the plasma was thought to be sinking.
The prevalence of red shifts led to the belief that heating is taking place high in the sun's atmosphere and leading to the evaporation of material from near the surface into the atmosphere that then flows back down as it cools. That may be true, Bradshaw said, but it leaves some important questions unanswered: What causes the heating? Where is the evidence for plasma rising from the surface into the atmosphere?
The new observations will help to answer these questions, he said.
"The blue shifts are the signature, or 'smoking gun,' of plasma flowing up into the atmosphere," said Bradshaw, Rice's William V. Vietti Junior Chair of Space Physics and an assistant professor of physics and astronomy. "They show that the fastest up-flows are found near the surface of the sun. This information gives us clues to the location where the heating is taking place, how fast it is and how much energy is needed."
"The sun governs the environment in which we live, and it is the so-called solar active regions that drive extreme conditions leading to the explosive flares and the huge eruptions; understanding these active regions is absolutely critical for the study of what we now call space weather," said Richard Harrison, head of space physics and chief scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. "The work published in this paper is a key element of that work, applying innovative analyses to the observations from the U.K.-led Hinode/EIS instrument."
Bradshaw noted the sun is fast approaching the part of its 11-year cycle when flares and coronal mass ejections occur most frequently. "These events present the most danger to satellites, power grids and even to airliners on flight paths in polar regions," Bradshaw said. "This period is called solar maximum, and we will become ever more reliant on this technology during every subsequent solar cycle.
"One of the aims of solar research is to develop a space-weather forecasting capability, whereby solar storms can be predicted by detecting their signatures before they occur at the sun," he said. "This is much like monitoring depressions as precursors to tropical storms and hurricanes, but space-weather forecasters will monitor active regions. Accurate forecasts of solar storms will give us the maximum possible time to prepare for their arrival at Earth and to mitigate their effects.
"Our work will contribute to this aim by leading to a better understanding of the physics of active regions."
###
Co-authors are principal investigator Durgesh Tripathi of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Ganeshkhind, India; and Helen Mason, assistant director of research, and Giulio Del Zanna, an advanced fellow in the atomic astrophysics group, both in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge.
The Hinode satellite was launched in 2006 by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in collaboration with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, NASA and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the United Kingdom. The European Space Agency and Norwegian Space Centre also supported the research.
Read the abstract at http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/754/1/L4
Related links:
Daily SDO/AIA images and movies: http://sdowww.lmsal.com/
Hinode/EIS website: http://msslxr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk:8080/SolarB/
iSun|trek website: http://www.suntrek.org/blog
Left, image of hot (1.8-million degree Fahrenheit) active region loops. Right, flows of solar plasma (blue shifts). Credit: Left: SDO/AIA (NASA); right: Hinode/EIS (JAXA, NASA, ESA and STFC)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 3-Jul-2012
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