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Overview of ESA communication activities in 2007 relevant to the media

ESA PR 01-2007. 2007 will be a highly symbolic year for the space sector worldwide (50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, marking the start of the space age) and for Europe in particular (50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome establishing the European Community).

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1. Overview of ESA communication activities in 2008 relevant to the media
   01-02-2008 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 1-2008. Press conferences, exhibitions, launches, political rendezvous and much more ... the list of the main communication activities that ESA will be involved in this year is a long one, but not an exhaustive one. You should pencil these dates into your diaries.
   
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2. ESA Director General annual press event - live audio
   01-17-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   Access live streaming audio from Paris, where ESA's Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, is meeting European media to present an in-depth overview of 2007 agency activities.
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3. Listen to the Director General's annual press event
   01-17-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   This morning, ESA's Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain met with European media to present an in-depth overview of the Agency's 2007 activities.

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4. Heads of space agencies meet in Paris
   01-17-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 05-2007. On 23 January, ESA's Headquarters in Paris will host an “ISS Heads of Agency meeting� at which Heads of space agencies involved in the International Space Station programme (ESA for Europe, NASA for the USA, CSA for Canada, JAXA for Japan and Roskosmos for Russia) will take stock of the status of the ISS and look at the follow-on activities.
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5. ESA Director General meets the Press
   01-04-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 02-2007. On Wednesday 17 January, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain will meet the Press at ESA Headquarters in Paris. Starting at 08:30 with breakfast, the gathering will be followed at 09:00 by a press briefing to take stock of the Agency's activities in 2006 and announce the main events for 2007.
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6. 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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7. Press conference with ESA astronauts after mission to the ISS
   01-05-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 03-2007. On Thursday 18 January, a press conference will take place at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany to give media a chance to meet the ESA astronauts Thomas Reiter, of Germany, and Christer Fuglesang, of Sweden, after completion of their respective missions following the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery on 22 December.
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8. Press conference with ESA astronaut after mission to the ISS
   01-05-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 03-2007. On Thursday 18 January, a press conference will take place at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany to give media a chance to meet the ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, of Germany, after completion of his mission following the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery on 22 December.
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9. Press conference with ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter after his mission to the ISS
   01-05-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
   ESA PR 03-2007. On Thursday 18 January, a press conference will take place at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany to give media a chance to meet the ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, of Germany, after completion of his mission following the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery on 22 December.
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10. Media event at ESOC: closest encounter between ESA's comet chaser Rosetta and Mars
    02-16-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
    ESA PR 08-2007. On Sunday 25 February, ESA's probe Rosetta, currently on a ten-year journey to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, will make its closest approach to the planet Mars, coming within 250 kilometres of its surface.
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