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Chemical engineer who used a saucepan to develop a way of eliminating radioactive waste wins award

11-08-2007 · University of Bath

A Bath chemical engineer, Professor Stan Kolaczkowski, who used a saucepan to develop a method of eliminating a source of radioactive waste has won a prestigious award.

Keywords: chemical, engineer, used, saucepan, develop, way, eliminating, radioactive, waste, wins, award, win

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MIT encryption pioneer wins Marconi Prize
07-17-2007 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MIT Professor Ronald L. Rivest, who helped develop one of the world's most widely used Internet security systems,Â has been named the 2007 Marconi Fellow and prize-winner for his pioneering work in the field of cryptography, computer and network security.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Scientists discover novel way to remove iron from ferritin
11-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
A new study led by Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute senior scientist, Elizabeth Theil, PhD, is the first to suggest that a small protein or heptapeptide could be used to accelerate the removal of iron from ferritin. The results of this study may help scientists develop new medications that dramatically improve the removal of excess iron in patients diagnosed with blood diseases such as B-Thalassemia (Cooley's anemia) or sickle cell disease.
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Genetically engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen
12-01-2006 · EurekAlert!
Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, says research published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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Pollution control technology wins Royal Society award
02-20-2007 · University of Bath
A new technology developed in the Department of Chemical Engineering that could drastically reduce the amount of pollution emitted by a range of industrial processes has received a prestigious award from the Royal Society.
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Bio-crude turns cheap waste into valuable fuel
02-04-2008 · EurekAlert!
CSIRO and Monash University have developed a chemical process that turns green waste into a stable bio-crude oil. The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels.
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Tequila raw ingredient being developed into drug-carrier that targets colon diseases
03-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Compounds derived from the blue agave, a fruit used to make tequila, show promise as a natural, more effective way to deliver drugs to the colon than conventional drug-carriers, according to chemists at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. The discovery could lead to improved treatments for a variety of colon diseases, including ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel and cancer, they say. The research will be presented in March at the American Chemical Society national meeting.
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Chemical cues turn embryonic stem cells into cerebellar neurons
03-14-2007 · EurekAlert!
Rockefeller University scientists show that embryonic stem cells implanted in the brain appear to develop into fully differentiated granule neurons, the most plentiful neuron in the cerebellum. The findings are a step toward understanding how embryonic stem cells could be regulated in vivo and ultimately used for cell replacement therapy, especially after childhood tumors, in the central nervous system.
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Technique monitors thousands of molecules simultaneously
05-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis is making molecules the new-fashioned way -- selectively harnessing thousands of minuscule electrodes on a tiny computer chip that do chemical reactions and yield molecules that bind to receptor sites. Kevin Moeller, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, is doing this so that the electrodes on the chip can be used to monitor the biological behavior of up to 12,000 molecules at the same time.
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Gold, Copper Nanoparticles Take Center Stage in the Search for Hydrogen Production Catalysts
03-28-2007 · Brookhaven National Laboratory
X-ray studies at Brookhaven are pointing the way to less costly and more efficient catalysts for improving the performance of fuel cells. The studies, which will be presented by Brookhaven chemist Jose Rodriguez at the 233rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, show that copper can be substituted for gold in reactions that keep fuel cells functioning longer while eliminating unwanted byproducts.
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