Asia Research News 2017

B R I N G I N G D I S COV E R Y TO L I G H T

our new hope

20 17

Predator Bacteria

also inside

Ever-shrinking robots Space cucumbers How to catch phish The power of daycare

Credit: Denys Bilytskyi*

Research to public: content creation, distribution and monitoring

when your story needs to be heard

Bringing discovery to light

page 11

CO N T R O L L I N G T U RT L E M OT I O N W I T H HUMAN THOUGHT

I M P R OV I N G T H E H E A LT H O F F R AG I L E T R I B E S

Black holes stifle galaxy growth page 23

Slackers turned saviours page 26

page 50

Purifying cells to treat disease page 35

topic 04 Space 20 Environment 26 Medicine34 People 62 Materials 67.

Technology

Making molecules that twinkle page 71

Welcome to the 2017 edition of Cover Photo Credit: Dmitry Knorre*

credit: Petrica Ciprian Kis / 123rf

Asia Research News Team Magdeline Pokar John Eberlee Nadia El-Awady Aya Kawanishi Vivien Chiam Motoko Kakubayashi Laura Petersen

Contributing writers

Ruth Francis Djuke Veldhuis Keane Shore Yao-Hua Law Steve Prichard Phil Thornton James Tyrrell

Design

Xray Creative

Editorial consultants Daniel Raymer Pokar Vellaykuti

Research featured in Asia Research News 2017 is based on information provided by the research institutions listed. Readers are advised to contact the researchers for additional information.

All images used in whole or in part within this publication are credited to the respective image owners.

ResearchSEA Limited and the Asia Research News team does not accept responsibility for any loss, damage or expenses incurred resulting from the use of information in this publication.

ISSN 2042-0536 Copyright ResearchSEA Limited. We welcome you to reproduce articles in Asia Research News 2017, provided appropriate credit is given to Asia Research News and the research institutions featured.

Contacts

General: Magdeline Pokar m.pokar@researchsea.com Singapore: Vivien Chiam vivienchiam@researchsea.com Japan: Motoko Kakubayashi m.kakubayashi@researchsea.com www.researchsea.com ResearchSEA @ResearchSEA company/ResearchSEA

Research is beautiful. It is hope for a better future. This is why we, at Asia Research News, enjoy our work immensely. We get to work with scientists on the frontlines, to tell their stories and bring their breakthroughs to you.

A few years ago, we wrote about the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. This year, we highlight research about bacteria-eating bacteria, which might form our next line of defence against infections.

Mother Nature is full of lessons for us. Ants teach us that lazy colleagues could be a good thing. We’re learning how the world’s longest-living rodent avoids cancer and what herbs and ancient remedies can teach us in our struggle against disease.

From outer space, we discover why the colour blue holds clues to the first stars in the universe, why massive black holes are stopping new star births, and what cucumbers in space can tell us about plants on earth.

Back home, scientists concerned about our food security have designed a biomolecule that will help them work out how to overcome a parasite that destroys US$10 billion-worth of crops each year.

Every researcher knows that before you can solve a problem, you first need

to observe, measure and understand.

We feature many new techniques that will enable researchers to delve deeper and learn more.

In keeping us healthy, the pharmaceutical industry can create up to 100 kilograms of toxic waste per kilogram of drugs. Researchers working on green chemistry offer solutions to change this.

All working parents appreciate the importance of good, affordable day care. Yet, many women in low-income communities don't have access to this luxury. We feature one of the first formal evaluations of day cares in our People section alongside research on how indigenous communities and refugees are using song and art to maintain a connection to their identity. Also in this issue, researchers are working hard to give us a better future by investigating ways to keep our older generation safe and by looking for better solutions for our growing energy, health and technology needs.

We hope you enjoy reading Asia Research News 2017 as much as we’ve enjoyed publishing it. If you would like to know more, please e-mail me, Maggie Pokar, at m.pokar@researchsea.com.

TECHNOLOGY

M I C R O R O B OT S INSPIRED BY N AT U R E

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A revolutionary design mimics the rowing action of the cilia on single-celled Paramecium, demonstrating much faster movement than conventional microrobots.

Researchers based at South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have designed microrobots that mimic the rowing action of the cilia present on the single-celled Paramecium; an organism common in stagnant water and ponds.

Microrobots offer a wide range of potential treatments in healthcare, from delivering drugs to target sites to fighting heart disease and cancer. These robots, typically a few hundred micrometres (µm) long, are most commonly controlled via the manipulation of magnetic fields.

Usually these microrobots are powered using a propeller-like tail, where the bending of the tail both powers the robot and can be used to alter direction.

The team at DGIST made a microrobot that is 220 µm long (roughly the thickness of a sturdy sheet of paper) and 60 µm high (the diameter of an average human hair), which mimics the ciliary movement of Paramecium using eight 75 µm-long cilia on each side of its body.

The microrobots were built up from a glass substrate using a 3D laser lithography system, and later partially coated with nickel and titanium deposits. They were then remotely triggered to move and orientate with magnetic fields from eight electromagnetic coils.

One challenge of moving while immersed in fluid is described by the so-called ‘scallop theorem’, where, if any movement forward is mirrored backwards, the object

2017 credit: designua / 123rf

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Further information

Professor Choi Hongsoo | E-mail: mems@dgist.ac.kr Department of Robotics Engineering Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST)

will remain in its original position. If one thinks of a rowing boat: if the oars were not removed from the water during the recovery phase, they would move the boat back to its starting point following the drive.

To overcome this problem with their microrobot, the researchers applied a difDGIST microrobot is roughly the thickness of a sturdy sheet of paper.

220 µm

4 x 10 µm

ferent magnetic field to the cilia during the recovery phase, changing their orientation relative to the power stroke and allowing the robot to be efficiently moved forward.

The microrobots were tested in a purified water and silicon oil mixture, and demonstrated average speeds of 340 µms-1 (about 1.5 times the microrobot’s length per second). This is between 8.6 and 25.8 times faster than the team’s previous microrobots that move using magnetic attraction.

“We’ll continually strive to experiment on microrobots so that they can move efficiently and operate well in the human body,” concludes Professor Choi Hongsoo, leader of the team at DGIST. “By mimicking the cilia’s asymmetric movement, we’ve demonstrated something that’s never been shown before.”

The next phase will be to carry out further in vitro and in vivo tests, with the longer-term goal of making these robots available for use in a range of medical treatments.

TECHNOLOGY

ON THE PAT H TOWA R D M O L EC U L A R R O B OT S

The crystals repeatedly flip under a blue light.

Credit: Hokkaido University

Did you know?

By applying blue light to the crystals in solution, the team observed, under a microscope, a repetitive bending-unbending motion of the thin crystals, which suggests the existence of two stable structures, bent or unbent, depending on the cis/trans ratio.

The frequency of the motion increased when the light intensity was increased.

Some crystal complexes even exhibited ‘swimming-like’ motions in the water. Previously reported light-responsive materials have been limited in their ability to deform.

The properties of the new compounds, however, allowed for a two-step switching mechanism, resulting in regular repetitive oscillations.

“The ability to self-organize rhythmic motions, such as the repetitive flipping motion we observed, is one of the fundamental characteristics of living organisms,” says Kageyama. “This can be observed, for example, in the repetitive contractions of the heart,” he explains.

This mechanism can be used in the future to develop bio-inspired molecular motors and robots that will find applications in wide areas, including medicine. To this end, the team is investigating ways to create autonomously working chemical systems by means of hierarchically assembling molecular machines.

Further information

2017

Assistant Professor Yoshiyuki Kageyama | E-mail: y.kageyama@sci.hokudai.ac.jp Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science Hokkaido University

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Molecular machines may one day be used to develop new materials, sensors and energy storage systems. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to three pioneering researchers for their roles in furthering the development of molecules with controllable movements that can perform tasks once energy is added.

Scientists in Japan have developed light-powered molecular motors that repetitively bend and unbend, bringing us closer to molecular robots.

Researchers around the world are trying to mimic cellular systems to develop molecular motors that can drive materials, including delivering drugs to target tissues. To this end, researchers must find ways to convert motion at the molecular level to motion at the macroscopic level. They also must find ways to cause chemical reactions to repeat autonomously and continuously.

Yoshiyuki Kageyama, Sadamu Takeda and colleagues at Hokkaido University’s department of chemistry have successfully created a chemical compound, called a crystalline assembly, which repeatedly flips under a blue light.

The team made crystals composed of an organic compound called azobenzene, commonly used in dye manufacturing, and oleic acid, commonly found in cooking oil.

Azobenzene molecules take two structurally different forms: cis and trans. They repetitively convert from one form to the other under blue light. The scientists tested if this would influence the structure of the azobenzene-oleic acid crystal, which contained unequal amounts of cis- and trans-azobenzene.

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TECHNOLOGY A hybrid ‘eco-roof’ design in Malaysia combines five existing energy-saving technologies into a single system.

Scientists at the University of Malaya have designed a roof that can help address an environmental conflict: increasing demands for energy to increase living comfort versus a need to scale back fossil fuel use to address climate change. The conflict has driven interest in more efficient renewable energy sources, especially in emerging economies.

The roof’s most visible feature is a V-shaped structure set atop a peaked roof, which guides wind into a series of turbines situated below it to generate

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energy as they turn. The structure also increases airflow within the building by means of vents built into the peaked roof to enhance natural ventilation.

In addition, a rainwater harvester is connected to an automated cooling and cleaning system that washes solar cells embedded in the sloped roof to keep them efficient. Transparent skylights brighten the main rooms inside the building during the daytime, reducing the need for artificial lighting.

The team says that adding the roof to an existing building creates minimal visual impact and can be used in urban and rural settings.

In Malaysia, the average person uses about 4,200 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per year.

The researchers say their roof could support about six people by generating more than 21,200 kWh of energy a year while saving another 1,840 kWh because of its skylights. Also, the venting system could move about 217 million cubic metres of air and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17,768 kilos, while the rainwater harvester could collect close to 525 cubic metres of water.

The team says the roof’s energy yield depends on where it is located. The researchers note that there were low winds at their test location, so payback could be greater in windier areas. They say the eco-roof can be situated and adjusted for local sunlight, rainfall and wind direction, using regional weather data.

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Further information

TA K I N G ENERGY EFFICIENCY U P TO THE ROOF Credit: University of Malaya

The v-shaped structure on the roof guides wind into a series of turbines to generate energy. Solar cells are washed by a rainwater cooling and cleaning system.

Professor Wen Tong Chong | E-mail: chong_wentong@um.edu.my Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering University of Malaya

TECHNOLOGY Singapore Management University’s Secure Mobile Centre is tackling cybersecurity risks in mobile computing.

Mobile computing has become a fundamental feature in modern day life as people develop an unprecedented reliance on smart phones and tablets. However, along with their ubiquity comes a host of risks that can affect personal privacy, sensitive corporate information and even national security.

Professor Robert Deng from the Singapore Management University (SMU)

However, he notes that it is extremely challenging to share large amounts of data that are encrypted using traditional techniques because of the difficulty in distributing decryption keys and managing decryption key revocations. For example, when people leave an organization, their decryption keys must be revoked so they can no longer access the organization’s data.

The SMC has filed a patent on a new technique that will allow individuals and organizations to share encrypted data in the cloud in a scalable and efficient manner.

This new technique allows efficient decryp-

STRENGTHENING C Y B E R S EC U R I T Y THROUGH RESEARCH

Professor Robert Deng Huijie | E-mail: robertdeng@smu.edu.sg Secure Mobile Centre Singapore Management University

Further information

2017

credit: nicolasmenijes / 123rf

tion on mobile devices and supports user revocation in real time.

Another project, headed by Dr Li Yingjiu, focuses on designing secure and usable authentication systems for mobile users.

Mobile platforms that authenticate the face of a legitimate user are an attractive alternative to passwords, which are often difficult to remember. However, most faceauthentication systems currently in use are intrinsically vulnerable to forgery by means of photos or videos of the legitimate user.

To overcome this problem, researchers at the SMC have developed FaceLive, a system that can differentiate between a photograph or video of a user and a ‘live’ one. FaceLive corroborates facial video information with live motion data from the mobile device to verify an actual live feed from the user. It uses a front-facing camera, an accelerometer and a gyroscope to detect three-dimensional characteristics of a live user’s face.

FaceLive simply requires users to hold and move their mobile device in front of their face while the front-facing camera captures a video of their face and the sensors simultaneously record motion data about their device.

A live user is authenticated if changes in head movement in the video are consistent with movements captured by the device.

Like most systems, FaceLive could be vulnerable to sophisticated attacks, but the system is an improvement on current face-detection software. “Our technique significantly raises the bar for adversaries to perform attacks,” says Li.

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School of Information Systems (SIS) believes that current approaches to mobile computing security have been ineffective because they fail to consider differences between platforms and applications.

“Mobile devices are power- and resource-limited compared to desktop computers due to their smaller sizes.

They are open to more channels such as mobile networks, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and storage cards. They also have increased functionality due to their ability to download applications. The mobility, connectivity and extensibility of mobile devices mean they require targeted and efficient security solutions,” says Deng, who is also the director of SMU’s Secure Mobile Centre (SMC).

This calls for a new approach to security research in mobile computing, one that he and his colleagues at the SMC aim to develop.

One of the centre’s many projects focuses on developing practical and secure solutions for sharing encrypted data in the cloud.

“Cloud data storage is becoming increasingly popular. However, since software systems are not guaranteed to be bug-free and hardware platforms are not under the direct control of data owners in the cloud, security risks are abundant. A common solution to mitigate users’ privacy concerns is to encrypt their data before it reaches the cloud. This keeps the data private even if service provider systems are compromised or untrusted,” says Deng.

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TECHNOLOGY

THE KEY TO PRIVATE AND EFFICIENT DATA STORAGE

Credit: Wavebreak Media Ltd/ 123rf

Cloud storage services, like Dropbox and Gmail, may soon be able to better manage your content, giving you more storage capacity while still being unable to ‘read’ your data.

People and businesses are more often than ever storing large amounts of private data in ‘the cloud’ with storage service providers. To protect their clients’ private information, this stored data is encrypted so that no one, including the service providers, can read it. But this makes it impossible for cloud storage providers to efficiently manage that data and provide their clients with better storage capacity. Research sponsored by a multinational IT service provider in 2010 suggested that up to 75% of all produced data is duplicated. Owners of an open source ‘deduplication’ solution suggest that reducing duplicate data could clear up to 95% of storage space.

For cloud storage providers to remove, or ‘deduplicate’, data, they need to be able to recognize it without infringing on their clients’ privacy. Now, researchers at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Data Storage Institute in Singapore have developed a system that allows cloud storage providers to do just that.

The system, called HEDup, involves the use of a separate ‘key server’, which assigns a secure key to the data that will be encrypted and then uploaded for storage on the cloud’s server. The service provider, such as Dropbox or Gmail, can then employ ‘homomorphic encryption’, which involves carrying out computations on the encrypted text, to detect information from the data’s secure key. This allows the provider to determine, without actually reading the original data, whether it is a duplicate. Duplicate data will have the same key, which can only be accessed for encryption and decryption purposes by data owners.

The team tested its system and found that it increased the uploading time of a 16-megabyte file, which normally takes an average of 5.22 seconds, by 1.4 seconds. It also increased the downloading time by only 0.4 seconds.

The team next plans to improve the security of the key server and to develop a method for clients to upload and download data from multiple devices without the need for manually providing their private key for its encryption and decryption.

KEY SERVER

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ENTERPRISE A

ENTERPRISE B

2017

Credit for network inset images: bluebay / 123rf

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Further information

Dr Khin Mi Mi Aung | E-mail: mi_mi_aung@dsi.a-star.edu.sg Data Storage Institute Agency for Science, Technology and Research

TECHNOLOGY

Credit for lock image: tuulijumala / 123rf

TA K I N G CO N T R O L B AC K F R O M T H E C LO U D

Further information

2017

Jianying Zhou | E-mail: jyzhou@i2r.a-star.edu.sg Institute for Infocomm Research Agency for Science, Technology and Research

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A user-controlled file security scheme makes it possible to instantly revoke access to files hosted on Internet cloud servers.

By securing data files with a ‘need-to-know’ decryption key, researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have developed a way to control access to cloud-hosted data in real time, adding an extra layer of security for data sharing via the Internet.

Cloud-based file storage has rapidly become one of the most popular uses of the Internet, allowing files to be safely saved in a virtual drive that is often replicated on numerous servers around the world. Cloud storage theoretically provides near-seamless backup and data redundancy, preventing data loss and also enabling files to be shared among users almost anywhere. However, proper treatment of sensitive or confidential information stored on the cloud cannot be taken for granted: the security of the cloud environment is not immune to hacker attacks or misuse by a cloud provider.

“Cloud storage services make data storage and sharing more efficient and cost-effective, but their use requires trust in the cloud’s security,” explains Jianying Zhou from the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research. “We wanted to find a way to ease the security concerns by creating a system that does not require the data owner to trust the cloud service or assume perfect protection against hacking.”

The scheme Zhou and his team developed allows access to an individual file hosted on a cloud service to be issued or revoked in real time, and eliminates the possibility that files can be taken offline and accessed without authorization.

Zhou explains the process. “The file owner, Alice, generates the proxy keys, which define who can decrypt the file, for example Bob, and gives them to the cloud server.

When Bob wants to access the encrypted file in the cloud, the cloud server needs to first decrypt the file for Bob using the proxy key as well as the cloud server’s private key. This results in an intermediate decryption that the cloud server passes to Bob. He then uses his private key to decrypt the file to get the plaintext file. If Alice wants to revoke Bob’s access, she simply informs the cloud server to remove his proxy key.”

The scheme allows the data owner to retain control over file access while making use of all the other benefits of cloud hosting. Importantly, it is applicable at the per-file and per-user level, and has ‘lightweight’ user decryption, meaning that files can be opened quickly even on mobile devices such as smart phones.

“Our technology could be used to provide scalable and fine-grained access control to various bodies of data collected by different organizations and shared via the cloud, with applications in areas such as healthcare, finance and data-centric cloud applications,” says Zhou.

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TECHNOLOGY An effective communication approach incorporating computer simulations could help people find practical means to evacuate in the event of a tsunami.

The extent of damage caused by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan demonstrated that the outcomes of disaster mitigation research were not fully applied in reality. Computer simulations are normally used to develop effective evacuation strategies. However, a gap remains between

and what issues make them feel pessimistic.

They then put the responses into a computer simulation system that includes geographical information and tsunami hazard data. The output, which was shared with the locals in workshops, showed an animation of how they would react to a tsunami, allowing them to identify what challenges they faced in order to evacuate successfully. This was followed by discussions about what the locals perceived to be issues, such as

CO M M U N I CAT I N G T S U N A M I E VAC UAT I O N S E F F EC T I V E LY

Credit: tkaiworks / 123rf

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Further information

Professor Michinori Hatayama | E-mail: hatayama@imdr.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) Kyoto University

an elevated shelter being too far away, and possible alternative plans, such as using a much nearer evacuation tower. The researchers conducted evacuation drills so that the residents could experience the alternative plans.

They found that this method made evacuation drills more efficient. Contrary to previously practiced drills, the researchers placed problem awareness ahead of practice, which helped shorten the time needed to determine possible alternative solutions.

The field activities also allowed some residents to realize evacuation was possible; something they were unsure of before.

They regarded alternative plans as feasible evacuation options.

However, some locals tended not to accept the alternative plans as they might involve some risks. For example, they preferred to evacuate by car rather than on foot, despite the fact that roads are often blocked by debris or are congested in a disaster.

New research should look into real life examples in order to find a solution to these problems, the researchers conclude.

Credit: Katsushika Hokusai

Tsunami refuge tower

computer-generated results and what is actually feasible for people, since simulations are not usually tested in real life.

Led by Professor Michinori Hatayama, researchers at Kyoto University combined computer simulations with fieldwork done in partnership with the residents of Mangyo, Kuroshio in Kochi prefecture in southern Japan. It is thought that the Kuroshio area will be the most affected in the event of a long-anticipated earthquake and tsunami originating in the Nankai Trough, a depression at the bottom of the ocean about 900km off the southern coast of Japan’s mainland.

The team’s aim was to facilitate effective communication between disaster mitigation professionals and society at large so that research outcomes are better utilized.

They also wanted to encourage the locals to develop practical evacuation plans to help them feel less pessimistic about their survival odds. Some residents had previously expressed hopelessness to the media should such a disaster happen.

Hatayama and his colleagues interviewed the residents to find out how they would react in the case of a tsunami warning

TECHNOLOGY

CO N T R O L L I N G T U RT L E M OT I O N W I T H HUMAN THOUGHT

Credit: Makieni / 123rf

Camera Servo motor

Wi-Fi transceiver Control Module Battery Colour Tracking Marker

Professor Phill-Seung Lee | E-mail: phillseung@kaist.edu Department of Mechanical Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Inset Picture: A human controller influences the turtle's escape behaviour by sending left and right signals via Wi-Fi to a control system on the back of the turtle.

Professor Sungho Jo | E-mail: shjo@kaist.ac.kr School of Computing Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Further information

2017

The entire human-turtle setup is as follows: A head-mounted display (HMD) is combined with a BCI to immerse the human user in the turtle’s environment. The human operator wears the BCI-HMD system, while the turtle has a 'cyborg system'—consisting of a camera, a Wi-Fi transceiver, a computer control module and a battery—all mounted on the turtle’s upper shell. Also included on the turtle’s shell is a

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Credit for insert: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Korean researchers have developed a technology that can remotely control an animal’s movement with human thought.

In the 2009 blockbuster “Avatar”, a human remotely controls the body of an alien.

It does so by injecting human intelligence into a remotely located, biological body. Although still in the realm of science fiction, researchers are nevertheless developing so-called ‘brain-computer interfaces’ (BCIs) following recent advances in electronics and computing. These technologies can ‘read’ and use human thought to control machines, for example, humanoid robots.

New research has demonstrated the possibility of combining a BCI with a device that transmits information from a computer to a brain, or a so-called ‘computer-to-brain interface’ (CBI). The combination of these devices could be used to establish a functional link between the brains of different species. Now, researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a human-turtle interaction system in which a signal originating from a human brain can affect where a turtle moves.

Unlike previous research that has tried to control animal movement by applying invasive methods, most notably in insects, KAIST researchers propose a conceptual system that can guide an animal’s moving path by controlling its instinctive escape behaviour. They chose the turtle because

of its cognitive abilities as well as its ability to distinguish different wavelengths of light. Specifically, turtles can recognize a white light source as an open space and so move toward it. They also show specific avoidance behaviour to things that might obstruct their view. Turtles also move toward and away from obstacles in their environment in a predictable manner. It was this instinctive, predictable behaviour that the researchers induced using the BCI.

black semi-cylinder with a slit, which forms the ‘stimulation device’. This can be turned ±36 degrees via the BCI. The entire process works like this: the human operator receives images from the camera mounted on the turtle. These real-time video images allow the human operator to decide where the turtle should move.

The human provides thought commands that are recognized by the wearable BCI system as electroencephalography (EEG) signals. The BCI can distinguish between three mental states: left, right and idle. The left and right commands activate the turtle’s stimulation device via Wi-Fi, turning it so that it obstructs the turtle’s view. This invokes its natural instinct to move toward light and change its direction. Finally, the human acquires updated visual feedback from the camera mounted on the shell and in this way continues to remotely navigate the turtle’s trajectory.

The research demonstrates that the animal guiding scheme via BCI can be used in a variety of environments with turtles moving indoors and outdoors on many different surfaces, like gravel and grass, and tackling a range of obstacles, such as shallow water and trees. This technology could be developed to integrate positioning systems and improved augmented and virtual reality techniques, enabling various applications, including devices for military reconnaissance and surveillance.

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TECHNOLOGY A practical anti-phishing tool for the Internet can secure electronic communications, enhance confidence in e-commerce sites, and reduce consumer and business financial losses.

‘Phishing’ is a slightly droll label for an unfunny problem: counterfeit websites with fake login screens that can fool even the very technology-literate and harvest real online logins.

Researchers at the University Malaysia Sarawak have designed a tool called PhishWHO, which, even though still under development, outperforms current anti-phishing detection tools.

In mid-2014, a security group compiled a non-exhaustive list of more than 42,000 phishing websites on the Internet. In that

emails that threaten account closures or arrest for illegal behaviour, then invite them to click on a fraudulent link to solve the issue. The link, doctored to look real, sends the victim to a website that also looks real and deceives them into entering sensitive information.

Currently available anti-phishing tools are often Internet browser plug-ins such as Google Safe Browsing or Phishtank, which refer to constructed blacklists to detect bad sites. But if a phishing site is not yet entered on the blacklist, such plug-ins cannot detect it.

When PhishWHO, on the other hand, ‘sees’ an input field on a linked web page, it starts a complex but rapid process that finds the real website in order to compare

H OW TO CAT C H P H I S H Did you know?

A typical Internet user is often unaware of the meaning of common browser security indicators, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) icon and digital certificates on the browser address bar. Even tech-savvy users who are aware of phishing scams can only successfully detect a phishing page slightly more than half the time.

Credit: Weerapat Kiatdumrong / 123rf

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year alone, Internet hackers used phishing attacks to trick online users into giving up credit card numbers, passwords and account identities; then used them to steal an estimated $453 million worldwide.

Login passwords for email, social networking sites or bank accounts become the first step in a process of identity theft that can gain access to bank accounts, credit card numbers, or personal secrets and use them to siphon money from the people who have it to the criminal hackers who want it. Security organizations say the threat is growing.

Phishers usually hoodwink people into going to these websites with spammed

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Further information

Choon Lin Tan | E-mail: colin89lin@gmail.com Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

what the researchers call ‘identity markers’ on it with those of the linked site.

PhishWHO works by parsing differences between actual web pages and their phishing lookalikes in real time. Several check modules running in parallel can determine if a website is real, since cloned websites that look real differ from genuine ones in other characteristics that generate the unique identity markers.

Because many phishing websites also infect every visitor’s computer with malware, PhishWHO may best be used as a module in antivirus software that can protect against such attacks.

Dr Chiew Kang Leng | Email: klchiew@unimas.my Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology University Malaysia Sarawak

TECHNOLOGY

Further information

2017

Professor Sang-Young Lee | E-mail: syleek@unist.ac.kr School of Energy and Chemical Engineering Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

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Credit: Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)

INKJET-PRINTED BAT TERIES BRING US CLOSER TO SMART OBJEC TS

A rechargeable power source printed onto normal paper using a standard inkjet printer could pave a new way for a wide range of ‘smart’ objects.

The race is on to develop everyday objects that have network connectivity and can send and receive data: the so-called ‘Internet of Things’.

But this requires flexible, lightweight and thin rechargeable power sources. Currently available batteries are packaged into fixed shapes and sizes, making them unsuitable for many future needs.

Researchers in South Korea have developed printable supercapacitors that can be incorporated into a wide variety of objects as a power source.

The team, led by Professor Sang-Young Lee from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, developed inks that can be printed onto paper to fabricate a new class of printed supercapacitors.

The process involves using a conventional inkjet printer to print a preparatory coating—a ‘wood cellulose-based nanomat’—onto a normal piece of A4 paper. Next, an ink of activated carbon and single-walled nanotubes is printed onto the nanomat, followed by an ink made of silver nanowires in water. These two inks form the electrodes. Finally, an electrolyte ink—formed of an ionic liquid mixed with a polymer that changes its properties when exposed to ultraviolet light—is printed on top of the electrodes. The inks are exposed at various stages to ultraviolet irradiation and finally the whole assembly is sealed onto the piece of paper with an adhesive film.

The process results in a printed supercapacitor with good mechanical flexibility and reliable electrochemical performance. The team used the printed supercapacitor to make a ‘smart glass’ that responded to a temperature stimulus. The supercapacitor was printed onto the glass in the shape of the words ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. When the glass was filled with hot or cold liquids, a red LED lamp lit up the word ‘hot’ or a blue LED lamp lit up the word ‘cold’ respectively.

“Due to the simplicity and scalability of their process and design universality, [these] inkjet-printed supercapacitors … hold substantial promise as a new class of monolithically-integrated flexible power sources that are urgently needed for the forthcoming Internet of Things and flexible/wearable electronics,” the researchers conclude in their paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

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TECHNOLOGY Sensors are being used to in­crease the safety of seniors living inde­pendently in their own homes.

Ensuring a high quality of life for an expanding elderly population demands that community eldercare providers strike a delicate balance between frequently competing factors. For instance, safety is sometimes at odds with privacy; providing

tiveness with the limited number of staff and volunteers they have, while still catering to the elderly person’s individual needs.”

The research proposes that the best approach to deal with a growth in an ageing population is to allow as many people to stay in their homes as possible.

With senior citizens set to account for 20% of Singapore’s population by 2030, the

carrying the panic button, there is still the sensor system to detect the conditions that point to an emergency, analyse the data and sound the alarm.

Contacts on the main door indicate whether the tenant is inside or outside the apartment. If the resident remains inside, motion sensors on the walls of each room will determine whether the person is moving

S M A RT H O M E S ENHANCE S E N I O R S ' SA F E T Y

ASIA RE SEARC H NE WS 2017

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comprehensive care may erode an elderly person’s cherished sense of independence; and too much security may give rise to a sense of being controlled.

Project SHINESeniors, which is focused on resolving these contradictions, does so by creating a ‘smart home’ for older people living alone.

A team of researchers at Singapore Management University (SMU) - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) iCity Lab has equipped one-bedroom apartments with motion sensors that can detect unusual periods of inactivity: a possible indication that the tenant has either fallen or suffered a health crisis. This information is then fed to a voluntary welfare organization for its staff and volunteers to react to the potential emergency.

What makes Project SHINESeniors unique is its focus on how the technological tools can enhance the efforts of community caregivers who provide the crucial, person-to-person contact with elderly tenants.

“The value we provide is in tying the technology to community care provisioning,” says Dr Tan Hwee Pink, academic director of iCity Lab. “We see it as a more complete, holistic and end-to-end evidence-based approach to ageing. The technology enables community organizations to improve their operations and increase their effec-

Further information

concept of ‘ageing in place’ becomes key to dealing with “the fact that healthcare resources and assisted living facilities are becoming more limited,” says Tan. Yet living alone is not without risk. In fact, the government initiated the current research in response to the tragic realization that, over a five-year period, “about 50

elderly residents in Singapore passed away in their homes and it had taken days, or sometimes up to a few weeks, to find out that they were dead,” Tan explains.

To reduce such incidents, a sensorenhanced ‘smart home’ was designed. The first line of defence is a panic button that a resident can push to alert the community caregivers that he or she has fallen or is facing a problem. If the elderly person is not

Associate ProfessorTan Hwee Pink | E-mail: hptan@smu.edu.sg SMU-TCS iCity Lab Singapore Management University

according to normal patterns or if there is an unexpected absence of movement.

SMU research fellow Dr Alvin Valera stresses that the unobtrusive nature of this motion-detecting system reassures residents that their privacy is not being violated.

“We don’t use vision-based or camerabased sensors, or even those that record audio precisely because of this concern with privacy,” he says.

A key objective of the project is to refine the technology to better distinguish between normal and abnormal periods of inactivity so as to reduce the number of false alarms.

“We looked at the historical data of each resident’s movement patterns to determine a personalised threshold that would give us a better indication of how long it should be before an alert is sent,” explains Valera.

After its three-year trial, there are hopes that the implementation of the smart home systems will be scaled up throughout Singapore.

Responses from elderly participants have been encouraging. No one has dropped out of Project SHINESeniors and many have urged their friends to sign up for the pilot test.

“What touches me most,” says SMU research scientist Dr Tan Hwee Xian, “is to hear from the elderly that the system makes them feel safe.”

Credit: Weerapat Kiatdumrong / 123rf

TECHNOLOGY

INCREASING THE CA PACITY OF OPTICAL TRANSMISSION A multilevel modulation format developed by University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus researchers shows clear advantage in achieving longer fibre-transmission distances.

High-speed communications are the backbone of the modern technological age, with the ability to transfer data using optical fibres often forming the skeleton upon which these systems are built. Increasingly, metropolitan or ‘campus’ networks carry more traffic, with a CISCO report estimating that these networks will account for 62% of all IP traffic by 2018.

Often, the enterprise, university or government operating these networks almost entirely own their infrastructure. Given the constraints on the cost of operating and replacing this equipment, something of an ‘arms race’ is developing in the optical communications world to provide the fastest, cheapest data transmission.

The very simplest form of fibre-optic communication, ‘on-off keying’, allows the transmission of data over long distances via a series of binary ‘1’s and ‘0’s created by the presence or absence of a high-frequency electromagnetic wave called a ‘carrier wave’.

The process is analogous to the use of Morse code over radio frequencies.

The rate at which this carrier wave is changed is known as its modulation. When viewed visually, the example above would look like a square wave as the signal changes between on and off. This form of modulation only allows one data stream to be carried at a time.

Research has focused on systems that use pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) to encode information by placing the information along the rising and descending crest, or amplitude, of regularly timed electromagnetic pulses. PAM allows different data streams to be encoded in a single data

stream, similar to how the bass and lead guitars combine different signals at the same time in a song. This system does present some difficulties, with signal noise (erroneous signals picked up) requiring sensitive receivers to regenerate the data without error at the end of the optical fibre.

Recently, a modulation known as eight-level PAM (8-PAM) attracted considerable interest, as it was hoped it would triple data rates.

Now, researchers from the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), led by Professor Amin Malek Mohammadi, have proposed a modulation format known as absolute added correlative coding (AACC) that is proving to be more robust against long-distance fibre transmission than the leading PAM methods.

One particular issue in optical fibre networks is that of chromatic dispersion, where the optical pulse lengthens as it travels down the fibre. Pulses launched too close together can then interfere with each other, with a resulting loss in information.

Professor Mohammadi’s AACC method was less prone to chromatic dispersion when compared with 8-PAM. In comparison to 4-PAM, AACC demonstrated around 7.8 decibels improvement in terms of the minimum power the receiver needs to regenerate the data without error, called receiver sensitivity.

Such an improvement in the receiver sensitivity in 100 gigabyte/ second optical systems would lead to cheaper transmission components and reducing costs.

The UNMC team continues to develop the AACC modulation in the hope of improving and further combining it into other existing technologies. The team’s ultimate goal is to increase the capacity of existing optical transmission systems by at least a factor of three.

ASIA RE SEARC H NE WS

Did you know?

Global Internet traffic in 2018 will be 64 times the volume of the entire global Internet in 2005

2017

Credit: Samantha Craddock / 123rf

Professor Amin Malek Mohammadi | E-mail: amin.malek@nottingham.edu.my Faculty of Engineering The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

Further information

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TECHNOLOGY Buddhist nuns in Myanmar. A SIM card used to cost the same as a home in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The price has fallen to just $1 but other obstacles to boosting Internet penetration remain.

DIALLING IN: INCREASING INTERNET PENETRATION IN MYANMAR Credit: LIRNEAsia

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

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Researchers are helping Myanmar transition to an inclusive, networked economy that gives citizens access to technology and services.

As one of the least-developed countries in the world, Myanmar, unsurprisingly, has one of the lowest mobile phone and Internet penetration rates. Just 13% of its 53 million citizens had access to mobile phones in 2013, and only 1% had access to the Internet.

But after decades of state restrictions on outside communication, the country could be poised to make a leap from being one of the least connected societies in the world to becoming an inclusive information society.

The dramatic fall in the cost of SIM cards from US$7,000 in 1998 to just US$1 in 2015 has made mobile handsets affordable.

But major obstacles remain for Myanmar to become a truly inclusive, networked economy that gives its citizens access to technology and services.

To get a better understanding of the

Further information

challenges, researchers at LIRNEasia, an Asia-Pacific think tank, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) embarked on evidence-based, empirical research to give policymakers and telecommunications operators the information they need to make decisions that will increase access.

The 34-month nationwide survey on mobile phone and Internet usage and communications needs began in March 2015 and includes 8,400 households, representing 97% of all households.

One of the researchers, Phet Sayo of IDRC, says the data gathered by the project will inform policies to help citizens take advantage of the social and economic opportunities resulting from improved information and communication technology infrastructure.

“Since 2010, Myanmar's transition to democracy has opened up new opportunities to use digital technologies to support social development and economic growth,” he says.

Phet Sayo | E-mail: psayo@idrc.ca International Development Research Centre

The first phase showed that mobile phone penetration has increased: almost four out of ten 15- to 65-year-olds now have a mobile subscription and 70% said they had used a mobile phone in the last year.

However, just 2% said they had used a computer or accessed the Internet through a browser in the last 12 months.

Social networking and social media such as Viber, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter dominate Internet usage.

Sayo says the study will be useful for policymakers and the telecommunications sectors in the short term. “But even more so for the long term, in my opinion, as the work can provide the public and private sector a roadmap of the knowledge base required to make decisions to improve access,” he says.

Sayo says these benefits include improved digital literacy and better public services via digital applications as well as greater access to mobile phones and the Internet.

IDRC | Email: info@idrc.ca International Development Research Centre

TECHNOLOGY One key to achieving efficient semitransparent solar cells is to develop a transparent electrode for the cell’s uppermost layer that is compatible with the photoactive material. The Korean team developed a ‘top transparent electrode’ (TTE) that works well with perovskite solar cells.

The TTE is based on a multilayer stack consisting of a metal film sandwiched between a high refractive index layer and an interfacial buffer layer. This TTE, placed as a solar cell’s top-most layer, can be prepared without damaging ingredients used in the development of perovskite solar cells. Unlike conventional transparent electrodes that only transmit visible light, the team’s TTE plays the dual role of allowing visible light to pass through while at the same time reflecting infrared rays.

The semi-transparent solar cells made with the TTEs exhibited an average power conversion efficiency as high as 13.3%, reflecting 85.5% of incoming infrared light. Currently available crystalline silicon solar cells have up to 25% efficiency but are opaque.

The team believes that if the semi-transparent perovskite solar cells are scaled up for practical applications, they can be used in solar windows for buildings and automobiles, which not only generate electrical energy but also allow smart heat management in indoor environments, thereby utilizing solar energy more efficiently and effectively.

Prototype of a semi-transparent perovskite solar cell with thermal-mirror functionality Credit: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

A Korean research team has developed semi-transparent perovskite solar cells that could be great candidates for solar windows.

Scientists are exploring ways to develop transparent or semi-transparent solar cells as a substitute for glass walls in modern buildings with the aim of harnessing solar energy. But this has proven challenging, because transparency in solar cells reduces their efficiency in absorbing the sunlight they need to generate electricity.

Typical solar cells today are made of crystalline silicon, which is difficult to make translucent. By contrast, semi-transparent solar cells use, for example, organic or dye-sensitized materials. But compared to crystalline silicon-based cells, their power-conversion efficiencies are relatively low. Perovskites are hybrid organic-inorganic photovoltaic materials, which are cheap to produce and easy to manufacture.

They have recently received much attention, as the efficiency of perovskite solar cells has rapidly increased to the level of silicon technologies in the past few years.

Using perovskites, a Korean research team, led by Professor Seunghyup Yoo of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Professor Nam-Gyu Park of Sungkyunkwan University, has developed a semi-transparent solar cell that is highly efficient and functions very effectively as a thermal mirror.

HARNESSING ENERGY F R O M G L A S S WA L L S ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Thermal images are taken by an infrared camera to compare the heat rejection performance of automobile window film, semi-transparent solar cell and glass.

2017

Credit: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Credit: Liu Fuyu / 123rf

Professor Seunghyup Yoo | E-mail: syoo.ee@kaist.edu, syoo_ee@kaist.ac.kr School of Electrical Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Further information

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TECHNOLOGY

P H I L I P P I N E S ’ F I R ST M I C R O SAT E L L I T E CA P T U R E S U LT R A - H I G H - R E S O L U T I O N I M AG E S

(a )

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS Graduate students from the Philippines assembling DIWATA-1 at Tohoku University in Japan.

2017 Credit: Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, University of the Philippines Diliman and Philippines Department of Science and Technology

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Further information

Professor Yukihiro Takahashi | E-mail: smc@cris.hokudai.ac.jp Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Hokkaido University

TECHNOLOGY

(b)

fields of view. In contrast, larger satellites with cameras that are set to a fixed position image the same area every 16 days.

“Based on data from the space-based multispectral imager, we can tell if rice crops have blast infection before farmers can even detect symptoms,” says Professor Yukihiro Takahashi of Hokkaido University, who helped design the imager and organize the partnership with the Philippines. Blast infection is a fungal disease that destroys large numbers of crops every year. The camera is capable of detecting subtle disease-causing changes in the crop spectra that the human eye cannot detect, explains Takahashi.

The microsatellite can also be used to pinpoint the location of squid shoals by studying the distribution of phytoplankton in the ocean, he adds.

DIWATA-1 is part of a broader effort to grow the new Asian Micro-Satellite Consortium, which aims to launch 50 to 100 microsatellites to collect data for nine countries. The consortium formally began November 2016, with a signing ceremony.

Takahashi spearheaded the formation of the consortium, which includes Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The goal is to strengthen the region by sharing information across borders using standardized data collection tools. Any participating country, even if it has not launched a microsatellite, will have access to the data.

Several more satellites from participating countries are in the works, with expected launches in 2017 and 2018.

Since they are smaller, microsatellites are much easier and cost-effective to launch on a regular basis. For the price of one large satellite, Takahashi anticipates 100 Asian microsatellites will be orbiting the Earth within the next ten years.

2017

The (a) and (b) inserts compare two RGB images of Dumingag on the island of Mindanao, Philippines. Image (a) was taken by the high performance telescope installed in DIWATA-1, while image (b) was taken by Landsat 8’s operational land imager. These results demonstrate that DIWATA-1 can observe the Earth at significantly higher resolutions than existing large satellites.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Satellite success is a big step forward for the Philippines and for broader efforts to establish a microsatellite consortium across Asia.

The DIWATA-1 microsatellite, developed jointly by the Philippines and Japan, took pictures of the Earth’s surface with a resolution ten times better than the much larger US Landsat 8 satellite.

DIWATA brought into sharp focus what was a blurry abstract of colours with a data point captured every three metres on the ground versus every 30 metres

by Landsat 8.

The more detailed information will help the country better observe weather patterns and typhoons, which will improve disaster preparations and assist farmers with real-time harvest decisions.

The remote sensing data will also aid long-term management of fields, forests, water resources and fisheries.

The Philippines Department of Science and Technology and the University of the Philippines Diliman partnered with Hokkaido University and Tohoku University in Japan to design and build the microsatellite, which was released into orbit in April 2016.

Diwata is the Filipino word for ’fairy’.

True to its name, the satellite is much smaller and nimbler than its larger counterparts. It weighs about 50kg (110 pounds) and is about the size of a carry-on suitcase. It is equipped with four imaging sensors, including a high precision telescope and a wide-angle lens camera. The on-board liquid crystal multispectral camera, developed by Tohoku and Hokkaido universities, is capable of detecting visible and near-infrared wavelengths—seeing far more than regular cameras that just capture three spectral bands (red, green and blue).

DIWATA also collects images with much greater frequency. The microsatellite can capture images of an area on the Earth’s surface once a day because it can be rotated as needed and has four

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S PAC E It may soon be possible to detect the universe’s first stars by looking for the blue colour they emit on explosion.

The universe was dark and filled with hydrogen and helium for 100 million years following the Big Bang. Then, the first stars appeared, and metals were created by thermonuclear fusion reactions within stars.

supernovae models based on observations of extremely metal-poor stars.

Similar to all supernovae, the luminosity of metal-poor supernovae shows a characteristic rise to a peak brightness followed by a decline. The phenomenon starts when a star explodes with a bright flash, caused by a shock wave emerging from its surface after its core collapses. This is followed by

LO O K I N G FO R S I G N S O F T H E F I R ST STA R S

These metals were spread around the galaxies by exploding stars or ‘supernovae’. Studying first-generation supernovae, which are more than 13 billion years old, provides a glimpse into what the universe might have looked like when the first stars, galaxies and supermassive black holes formed. But to-date, it has been difficult to distinguish a first-generation supernova from a later one.

New research, led by Alexey Tolstov from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, has identified characteristic differences between these supernovae types after experimenting with

a long ‘plateau’ phase of almost constant luminosity lasting several months, followed by a slow exponential decay.

The team calculated the light curves of metal-poor blue versus metal-rich red supergiant stars. The shock wave and plateau phases are shorter, bluer and fainter in metal-poor supernovae. The team concluded that the colour blue could be used as an indicator of a first-generation supernova.

In the near future, new, large telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope scheduled to be launched in 2018, will be able to detect the first explosions of stars and may be able to identify them using this method.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Did you know?

Credit: Kavli IPMU

2017

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Further information

Alexey Tolstov | E-mail: Alexey.tolstov@ipmu.jp Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe The University of Tokyo

Supernovae are so bright that their light can be seen as far as ten billion light years away. The last supernova seen in the Milky Way galaxy was in 1604. The metals dispersed by exploding supernovae go on to form new stars and planets. By studying supernovae, scientists have discovered that we live in an ever-rapidly expanding universe.

S PAC E

S PAC E C U C U M B E R S R E V E A L S EC R E T S O F P L A N T S U R V I VA L

Credit: NASA

Biologists in Japan use the near-weight- horizontally on the ground, peg formation on detail back on Earth. Safety regulations on the less environment on the International Space the upper side is suppressed in response to space station prohibited the use of the standard Station to study the influence of gravity on gravity. fixing solution of ethanol, chloroform and acetic plant growth phenomena.

In this latest round of work, reported in the acid, but after much testing, the scientists develPlants are experts in survival and can con- journal Nature Microgravity and using sam- oped an alternative based on a mixture of acetic trol the direction of their roots to maximize ples grown on board the International Space acid, ethanol and distilled water. the use of resources around them. Using Station, Takahashi and his team highlight the Reunited with their cucumber seedlings, specialized cells, they can sense gravity and valuable contribution of the gravity-sensitive the Japanese researchers used a staining techredistribute hormones, called auxins, to stim- CsPIN1 protein to this process. The role of nique to pinpoint changes in cellular behaviour ulate growth and allow vital features of the the protein in facilitating the transport of the induced by gravi-stimulation. Examining cross plant to develop. Howsections of the seedlings ever, a big puzzle is how under a microscope, the this transport process scientists found that the occurs at a cellular level.

CsPIN1 protein (highlighted To learn more, researchduring the staining process) ers in Japan examined can relocalize under the incucumber seedlings fluence of gravity. germinated under the Specifically, this change very weak gravity—or in the position of protein microgravity—conditions was found to occur in the Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station, where the plant experiments took place of the International Space so-called transition zone of Station. the cucumber seedling—the Cucumbers were chosen for the study growth hormones had first been suggested in area between the stem and the roots—where as they, like other ‘cucurbitaceous’ seedlings previous experiments conducted on Earth. the pegs develop. What’s more, it appears that such as melons, pumpkins and squash, feature To gain further insight, the researchers this behaviour stimulates the formation of a celspecialized protuberances, or pegs, whose loaded cucumber seeds into specially designed lular canal capable of transporting growth horLaboratory formation is regulated by gravity. These pegs Kibo canisters, which were sent up to the space sta- mones from one side of this zone to the other. form during the plant’s early growth stage to tion. Here, water-absorbent plastic foam in the “This result helps to explain the gravhelp the seedlings emerge from their hard container was irrigated and the now-germinat- ity-regulated decrease in auxin level and seed coat and anchor the developing plant in ing seedlings were grown in the microgravity thereby suppression of peg formation on the the soil while its roots form. compartment of the cell biology experiment upper side of horizontally-growing cucumber When seeds are either placed before ger- facility for 24 hours. Then the cucumber seed- seedlings,” adds Takahashi. mination in a vertical position with their em- lings were either maintained in microgravity or Put simply, these findings point towards the bryonic roots pointing down, or are subjected were gravi-stimulated by applying a 1g cen- mec-anism by which the seedlings are able to turn to microgravity conditions, a peg develops on trifugal force for a further two hours. on and off the growth of their anchoring pegs in each side, explains Hideyuki Takahashi, a memOne of the big challenges facing the team relation to their orientation with respect to gravity. ber of the Space and Adaption Biology Labo- was finding a suitable fixative to ‘freeze’ the sta- And, as result, boost their chances of survival. ratory at Tohoku University’s Graduate School tus of the seedlings germinated on the space The work represents another step forward of Life Sciences. But when they are placed station so that the samples could be analysed in in understanding the life of plants.

Credit: Planta

PEG

PEG On Earth

Peg development

2017

Credit: Tohoku University

PEG

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

In microgravity, a peg develops on each side of the transition zone.

Development of cucumber seedlings after germination on Earth

In space

Professor Hideyuki Takahashi | E-mail: hideyuki@ige.tohoku.ac.jp Space and Adaption Biology Laboratory, Graduate School of Life Sciences Tohoku University

Further information

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S PAC E

Computational artist Norimichi Hirakawa used computer programming to produce moving images.

Hirakawa believes that technological tools and computation, rather than his imagination, are the most effective way for him to achieve the sublime. During his residence, he relied on computation to explore dimensions as a theme for his works.

Hirakawa learned that, for mathematicians and physicists, dimensions are just a parameter. Width and height, for example, contain two kinds of information, thereby allowing for two-dimensional space.

Six kinds of information, meanwhile, permit six-dimensional space.

Hirakawa applied this idea to digital images, and found that every dot in these images holds five kinds of information: X and Y for width and height; and R, G and B for colour. Based on this, Hirakawa wrote a computer code that plotted pixels from a two-dimensional digital image in a five-dimensional Euclidean space. Every digital image can be rotated in five-dimensional Euclidian space. Hirakawa’s “sunset” is an example.

“sunset (complexity)” IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER “Invisible Halo”

Credit: Norimichi Hirakawa

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

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Credit: Yasuo Nomura

Further information

Aya Tsuboi | E-mail: press@ipmu.jp Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe The University of Tokyo

Painter Yasuo Nomura joined Kavli IPMU as part of the institute’s artistin-residence programme. Nomura’s goal was to “explore the possibility of using scientific theories of multiple dimensions to inform two-dimensional paintings.”

Modern mathematics and physics use highly abstract concepts to understand nature. Yet ideas constrained by our normal senses—and often based on 19th century trends—still pervade today’s paintings.

Nomura is rethinking the essence of art, especially painting. His new artwork, such as “Invisible Halo”, might allow people to visually experience high-dimensional space.

“Invisible Halo” describes a highdimensional halo for elliptic curves.

In creating this piece, Nomura was inspired by astronomers’ successful observation of a halo, which they relied on to study dark matter.

S PAC E Supermassive black hole winds in a because they are devoid of fresh young newly discovered class of galaxies are stars. What is not known is how these so energetic they suppress future star systems remain inactive, given they have formation. the ingredients needed to form stars.

An international team of scientists It is extremely cold inside ‘molecular involved in the SDSS-IV MaNGA (Sloan clouds’—dense concentrations of gas and Digital Sky Survey-IV Mapping Nearby dust—causing atoms to bind together. The Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) deep cold also causes gas to clump to high project is studying approximately 10,000 densities. When the density reaches a cergalaxies near Earth. The researchers are tain point, stars form. Theoretically, once trying to build maps that star formation in these can provide details of ingalaxies has been shut So-called ‘red’ and dividual galaxies in order down, something must be ‘dead’ galaxies make to understand their life up a large fraction of removing or heating the cycles, from birth, growth gas that is forming under galaxies in our nearby universe and via star formation and the influence of gravity. are devoid of fresh, eventually death.

“Stars are created by young stars.

“The critical power of the cooling and collapse MaNGA is the ability to of gas, but in these galaxobserve thousands of galaxies in three ies there are no new stars despite an abundimensions by mapping not only how they dance of gas. It’s like we have rain clouds

elements contained within them. While doing so, two particular galaxies caught the team’s attention. The first, nicknamed Akira, was similar to a group of galaxies in its red colour and lack of young blue stars.

It also exhibited prominent wind outbursts caused by a supermassive black hole, giving the appearance of geyser outbursts. Akira was shown to be full of complex patterns of warm gasses, which implied an outflowing wind from the supermassive black hole at its centre. The team used the term ‘red geysers’ to describe this new class of galaxies.

The next question was: where did this ’fuel’ for the supermassive black hole come from? Based on advanced computational calculations, they hypothesized that a nearby interaction with a smaller galaxy, nicknamed Tetsuo, was responsible.

This smaller neighbour provided Akira, through shocks and turbulence, with the

S U P E R M A S S I V E B L AC K H O L E S ST I F L E G A L A X Y G R OW T H appear on the sky, but also how their stars and gases move inside them,” says Kevin Bundy, MaNGA’s principal investigator at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe.

Using data on the electromagnetic radiation emitted by galaxies, the team narrowed in on a question that has confounded astronomers for years. A large fraction of galaxies in our nearby universe appear dead and red in colour

hanging over a desert, but none of the rainwater is reaching the ground,” explains Edmond Cheung, lead author of the study.

Cheung’s team is developing galaxy maps that provide a clue as to why stars aren’t forming. These measure star velocity (the rate at which stars change in position), average star age, star formation history and details about gasses and the

fuel supply needed to heat its surrounding gas, ultimately preventing future star formation, which requires gas to be cooled.

So far the MaNGA project has compiled data from about 3,000 galaxies. This is a significant addition to the existing 800 data sets in the public domain as of April 2016 and will allow researchers to compare star formation and death events across galaxies.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Credit: Kavli IPMU

Edmond Cheung | E-mail: edmond.cheung@ipmu.jp Kavli Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Universe The University of Tokyo

2017

Credit: Prime Focus Spectrograph Project

An artist’s rendition of the galaxies Akira (right) and Tetsuo (left) in action. Akira’s gravity pulls Tetsuo’s gas into its central supermassive black hole, fuelling winds that have the power to heat Akira’s gas. Because of the action of the black hole winds, Tetsuo’s donated gas is rendered inert, preventing a new cycle of star formation in Akira.

Further information

23

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ENVIRONMENT

Myrmica kotokui, common ants found in Japan, were used for the analysis.

2017

Credit: Hokkaido University

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

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Japanese scientists show that lazy ant workers step in to replace fatigued workers, improving colony long-term persistence.

A quick glance at an ant foraging trail or beehive shows throngs of tireless workers feeding and protecting their colonies. A closer look reveals otherwise. In fact, many ant, bee and termite workers are slackers. In some cases, four-fifths of workers appear to just rest, eat, clean themselves or walk about. The remaining workers toil hard.

Scientists have spotted lazy workers in social insects since the 1980s. Yet insect societies, similar to humans, compete on efficiency and productivity. So what explains the existence of lazy workers?

One possible explanation is that lazy workers slack to ensure the colony’s survival against a wipeout of active workers, says a study published in Scientific Reports. In this study, a group of scientists at Hokkaido University and Shizuoka University in Japan found that when active ants are disabled by a rare catastrophe, the inactive ants, rested and energetic, step in to keep the colony running.

The team based its study on Myrmica kotokui, a common ant found in Japan. Like many other ant species, a certain percentage of M. kotokui do not work. In 2013, the team found that removing the most active workers from a colony prompted the previously lazy ants to work. They deduced that workers need different levels of stimulus to start working. A worker with a low stimulus threshold picks up tasks quickly, while one with a high threshold waits. In other words, the lazy worker is like the housemate that washes dirty dishes only if the house begins to stink.

But unlike washing dishes, some tasks, like cleaning and feeding the eggs, are so critical to ant colonies that negligence would cause its collapse. The scientists hypothesized that lazy workers serve as backups for carrying out critical tasks when active ants cannot.

To test its hypothesis, the team designed computer simulations of ant colonies. In the two models it built, workers had either the same stimulus thresholds or variable thresholds. Tasks appeared randomly in the simulations. All tasks started with the same stimulus value that increased if the tasks were unattended to. When a worker encountered a task that satisfied its threshold, it completed the task, became tired and could not work until it recovered. Fatigue recovery rates were also simulated in the models. A colony went extinct when no tasks were performed.

The simulations showed that colonies of workers with variable thresholds always completed fewer tasks than those with the same-stimulus threshold. Hence, colonies of workers with varying response to tasks were less productive than those with uniform response.

However, colonies of workers with variable thresholds persisted longer before they went extinct. Since not all workers responded to tasks identically, they did not exhaust as a collective. In contrast, colonies of workers with uniform response went extinct more quickly when there were more tasks and fatigue recovery was slower.

The scientists compared their simulation results with behaviours of real M. kotokui workers. They found that when the most hardworking ants turned idle, the laziest ants began to work. Reality agreed with the simulation.

Researchers still do not know how colonies generate or maintain their workers’ different thresholds to tasks. But this study shows that lazy workers improve colony persistence at the cost of productivity.

So lazy ants are not selfish, they are just waiting to work and they are very patient.

ENVIRONMENT

S L AC K E R S TURNED SAV I O U R S

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Did you know?

2017

A second recent study published by Hokkaido University researchers showed that ants can be picky about the colour of the bugs that provide them with honeydew. Ants protect the red and green bugs, called aphids, from the predators that eat them, in a mutually beneficial relationship. The study found that ants have a preference for aphid colonies that are 65% green. The result suggests that aphid colonies that have more colour variation will survive longer than those that don’t.

Credit: Hokkaido University

Associate Professor Eisuke Hasegawa | E-mail: ehase@res.agr.hokudai.ac.jp Laboratory of Animal Ecology, Department of Ecology and Systematics, Graduate School of Agriculture Hokkaido University

Further information

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ENVIRONMENT

WITCHWEED: D E ST R U C T I V E B Y N AT U R E Scientists in Japan have designed a synthetic molecule that gives new insight into how a destructive weed might be detecting its host crops.

The parasitic plant Striga, also known as witchweed, poses a major threat to food security, affecting 100 million people in Africa alone and destroying crops there worth US$10 billion every year.

Despite the devastating damage it causes, the full mechanism as to how Striga even detects the presence of its host crops, such as rice and corn, has been unclear. An interdisciplinary team from Nagoya University in Japan has developed a fluorescent molecule to help.

Striga is an effective and deadly parasite despite its deceptively colourful and attractive flowers and bright-green stems. Its success is down to its effective take-over of the host plant’s signalling molecules, called strigolactones, present in their root systems.

Strigolactones control plant development and promote beneficial symbiotic interactions between plants and soil microbes. However, in the presence of Striga, the host plant’s strigolactones actually promote the germination of parasitic Striga seeds in the soil. The weed grows around the roots of the host plant and develops appendages that penetrate the host root cells, taking over the root system and depriving the host plant of water and nutrients.

Despite its devastating effects, scientists have been struggling to understand how Striga seeds detect the presence of host crops. "I figured that there must be a protein receptor in Striga that can detect minute amounts of strigolactones produced by the host plant," says Yuichiro Tsuchiya, a plant biologist at the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) at Nagoya University.

Further information

The Striga parasitic plant infests food crops such as rice and corn, causing them to wither and die. In Africa, Striga affects about 40 million hectares of land, leading to losses worth over US$10 billion and affecting about 100 million people in the process.

Dr Shinya Hagihara | E-mail: hagi@itbm.nagoya-u.ac.jp Dr Yuichiro Tsuchiya | E-mail: yuichiro@itbm.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules Institute (ITbM) of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) Nagoya University, Japan Nagoya University, Japan

Credit: Marco Schmidt / Wikimedia

2017

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Tsuchiya and synthetic chemist Masahiko Yoshimura designed a strigolactone-like molecule they called Yoshimulactone Green (YLG), which fluoresces bright green upon reacting with and being decomposed by Striga. Live imaging using YLG allowed them to see how and where strigolactones bind and act upon the host plant’s cells.

Using YLG, they confirmed that a protein named ShHTLS in Striga functioned as the strigolactone receptor and triggered Striga seed germination.

Knowing which receptors and regulatory mechanisms are responsible for triggering Striga growth will allow researchers to come up with solutions to combat the weed. They may, for example, be able to design chemicals that halt Striga germination and thus prevent parasitism of crops.

Credit: Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM)

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Credit: Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM)

ENVIRONMENT

Credit: Napat Polchoke / 123rf

Researchers in Malaysia are harnessing properties in tropical microbes to address a variety of environmental, agricultural and aquacultural issues.

Dr Adeline Ting Su Yien and her colleagues at Monash University’s School of Science are investigating the highly diverse genetic pool of tropical microbes for crop improvement; disease control in agriculture and in aquaculture; the removal of toxic metals and dyes from the environment; and accelerating waste recycling.

“The general idea is to tap into the diversity of microbes in the tropics, as we are a region rich with various microbial species,” explains Ting. “We emphasize the use of novel groups of microbes, such as the indigenous microflora of the fish gut system, endophytes [fungi that live in plants] and non-white rot fungi for applications.”

The team has discovered, for example, that native bacteria in fish guts have the potential to be used as probiotics to protect other fish grown in aquaculture against diseases.

Brine shrimp larvae are commonly used as fish feed, and are therefore the most appropriate vector for delivery of probiotics. The researchers isolated and cultured the bacterium Lactococcus lactis from catfish and treated brine fish larvae with a suspension of the bacteria, a process known as ‘bioencapsulation’. The larvae were investigated and found to have a higher nutritional quality compared to larvae that weren’t bioencapsulated with the bacteria. The team then fed the bioencapsulated brine shrimp larvae to a commonly eaten fish in Asia called climbing perch and found it offered the fish a level of disease protection.

The team also found that formulations made with strains of Streptomyces bacteria commonly found in soil had antibacterial and antifungal properties that

U S I N G T R O P I CA L MICROBES TO I M P R OV E T H E ENVIRONMENT

2017

Further information

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Credit: Anirut Rassameesritrakool / 123rf

Associate Professor Adeline Ting | E-mail: adeline.ting@monash.edu School of Science Monash University Malaysia

Credit: Anont Wongfun / 123rf

could be used to protect banana crops from the fungal-borne Panama wilt disease.

Plants can also be protected from wilt disease by extracting organisms—called endophytes—that live in plants to ‘pre-colonize’ other target plants.

In another study, the researchers extracted common fungi from river sediments, indoor wastewater and plants to use in the removal of toxic metals and dyes from the environment. For example, they extracted the common fungus Trichoderma asperellum from the Penchala River in Kuala Lumpur and found it had the potential to remove triphenylmethane dyes (used extensively in the textile, leather, food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and paper industries) from water.

The Monash University researchers also isolated a filamentous bacterium called Actinomycete from empty fruit bunches of oil palms. They found that these bacteria could be used to accelerate the composting process of these empty fruit bunches, in addition to being used as biocontrol agents against Ganoderma boninense, a serious pathogen of the oil palm.

The team next plans to look for bioactive compounds produced by endophytes living in medicinal plants. “Our preliminary studies show endophytes from medicinal plants are highly diverse and have good antimicrobial and antioxidant properties,” says Ting. The researchers will also further develop the microbes identified in their studies for potential use in large-scale settings.

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ENVIRONMENT

M I T I G AT I N G F LO O D S WITH AN E L EC T R O N I C B R A I N

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

A computer model that can ‘learn’ like a human brain could help water resource managers reduce damage in cases of extreme flooding.

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a biologically-inspired method of computing that can receive large amounts of data, find patterns, learn from them and then develop predictions for future events. They have been proposed as a useful tool to process the complex relationships between large amounts of data related to the transformation of rainfall into runoff. This relationship is one of the most difficult hydrological problems faced by water resource managers.

Researchers at Universiti Putra

factors used, the more accurate the results.

The ANN was able to predict river stream flow into the reservoir with 76% accuracy.

“The results indicate that the artificial neural network is a powerful tool in modelling rainfall runoff,” report the researchers in a Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology study. “The obtained results could help water resource managers to operate the reservoir properly in the case of extreme events such as flooding and drought,” they add.

The ANN’s predictive power could be improved by including additional inputs such as deforestation, agricultural activities and land use, the researchers say.

Credit for brain image: Sarawuth Pamoon / 123rf

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Malaysia ‘taught’ an ANN to predict daily runoff for the Bertam River into the Ringlet Reservoir 200 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur. They collected daily rainfall and stream flow data from the Bertam River catchment area over a tenyear period, from 2003 to 2012, and estimated daily water evaporation using temperature data collected from the nearest station to the reservoir. Seventy per cent of this data was input into the model to train it while the remaining 30% of the data was used to test the model’s accuracy using statistical evaluation measurements. The ANN was developed to map the relationship between rainfall and runoff. The more

Further information

Dr Aida Tayebiyan | E-mail: ida_tayebiyan@yahoo.com Department of Civil Engineering Universiti Putra Malaysia

Credit for river image: Mohd Zaki Shamsudin / 123rf

ENVIRONMENT Scientists have established the first semen collection from saltwater crocodiles in Malaysia as a step on the path toward their conservation.

Saltwater crocodiles are not endangered, but their natural range has been greatly reduced. Formerly dominant in estuaries throughout South-East Asia, they now roam wildly in only a handful of countries. Habitat loss and deadly conflict with humans threaten the crocodiles’ future in this fast-developing region.

In the last two years, a team of researchers from Universiti Putra Malaysia’s (UPM) faculty of veterinary medicine— led by Professor Abd Wahid—has been collecting and studying semen from saltwater crocodiles with an eye on their conservation. They are the first to successfully collect semen from saltwater crocodiles in Malaysia. An Australian group reported the only other known successful attempt in 2014. The procedure is relatively easy, involving minimal massage of the crocodile’s penis to facilitate semen flow.

Credit: Panthat Sitdatviradee / 123rf

Tomistoma schlegelii, or the false gharial, is a crocodilian listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Its population has been reduced by 30% over the past 75 years due to continuing loss and fragmentation of swamp forest. They are among the largest crocodile species, with their males averaging five metres in length. The saltwater Crocodylus porosus is considered the largest of the crocodile species. The largest saltwater crocodile ever caught alive was in the Philippines at a length of 6.17 metres and weighing just over a ton.

C R O CO D I L E CO N S E R VAT I O N GETS U P C LO S E AND PERSONAL Studies of saltwater crocodile reproduction could spill over to benefit rarer and less-understood crocodilians. One example would be the false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), also known as the Malayan gharial, a type of freshwater crocodile, which is listed as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

“Artificial insemination would really help in assisted breeding of animals that are endangered,” says Dr Tengku Rinalfi of the UPM team. The team has so far failed to use the same method to collect semen from the false gharial. “Whatever we do in saltwater crocodiles can serve as a model for [the] false gharial.”

Professor Dr Abd Wahid Haron | E-mail: wahidh@upm.edu.my Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Universiti Putra Malaysia

Further information

2017

The next step is to develop cryopreservation and then artificial insemination.

There are also many more interesting questions that need to be answered by further research, “like how the crocodile’s chilled semen can stay viable for over three weeks while those of mammals cannot,” says Wahid. “But funding is a huge challenge,” he adds.

Artificial insemination is a complex technique that requires not just the technology to handle sperm but also an understanding of the animal’s physiology and behaviours. With artificial insemination, however, scientists can prevent inbreeding in captive crocodiles and selectively breed them for adaptive traits like disease resistance.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Restraining the crocodile, however, requires a skilled and experienced team.

Such essential expertise was provided by the UPM team’s collaborators: The Department of Wildlife and National Parks, the Sarang Buaya Crocodile Sanctuary and its municipal council.

So far, the researchers have successfully collected semen six times from four captive saltwater crocodiles. Although each collection produced less than one millilitre of semen, it was enough to examine fertility characteristics like sperm numbers and motility. The researchers’ results further support the earlier Australian study. They also tested four types of extenders—solutions that keep sperm viable—and found one that works.

Credit: Dr Wan Nor Fitri

Did you know?

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ENVIRONMENT

Researchers in the Philippines are studying the genetics of local catfish to help protect them from becoming endangered.

Catfish are primarily freshwater species and are found all over the world.

Some species that are native to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were also introduced to the Philippines and other

East Asia. The researchers are now planning to assign a scientific name to a species of catfish in the Philippines pending further research.

In another study published in 2016, Quilang and his team examined the genetic diversity of Philippines’ catfish.

One of the Philippines’ catfish species, Clarias macrocephalus, is a popular food

Credit: Jonas P. Quilang

Bighead catfish (Clarias macrocephalus) collected from Aparri, Cagayan, Philippines.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

countries in South-East Asia. Commonly consumed as food, and used for sport fishing and in aquariums, catfish contribute substantially to the Philippines’ economy.

There are nearly 3,000 different catfish species, and understanding their genetic diversity is important for developing proper management and conservation strategies, according to geneticist Jonas Quilang from the University of Philippines Diliman (UPD).

In 2015, Quilang and a colleague at UPD found significant ‘genetic distances’—an indicator that allows researchers to distinguish a new species from the existing genetic group—between the catfish Clarias batrachus found in the Philippines and those found in Thailand and India. Their findings supported previous studies based on the fishes’ morphologies that suggested that the catfish species found in India should be assigned its own binomial name, indicating it was distinct from another species found in mainland South-

in the country but its numbers have been declining due to pollution, urbanization and competition with other catfish species. As a result, it was listed as ‘near-threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2011.

The researchers analysed DNA from the tissue of 120 specimens of C. macrocephalus from Buguey, Camalaniugan on the northern coast and Agusan del Sur in the south-east of the Philippines.

They found that the species had very low genetic variation. Additionally, some specimens had deformities in their tail fins and body shape, suggesting that the fish had been inbreeding for several generations.

This low level of genetic diversity is making the fish prone to extinction, requiring immediate measures to restore the population in the wild, the researchers conclude.

The team hopes its study can be used as a starting point to prevent further declines in the population of C. macrocephalus and other fish species in the Philippines.

2017

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Further information

Associate Professor Jonas P. Quilang | E-mail: jpquilang@up.edu.ph College of Science University of the Philippines Diliman

ENVIRONMENT

SAV I N G CATFISH B Y U N D E R STA N D I N G THEIR GENETICS

Did you know?

barcodes. DNA fragments can be assigned to a species by sequencing the COI gene and searching for a match in BOLD or other public genetic databases. DNA barcoding can facilitate the discovery of new species and flag others for further taxonomic investigation.

Cases of possible misidentification, especially for species that are morphologically similar and cases of possible hybridization between species, have been documented through DNA barcoding.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

Taxonomists and biodiversity researchers are increasingly relying on a molecular genetic technique, called DNA barcoding, to rapidly identify species and accurately assess biodiversity. A mitochondrial DNA gene, called COI, was proposed as a global bioidentifier for animals. This gene’s barcode region consists of about 650 base pairs. A database called the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD; www.boldsystems.org) keeps a reference collection of DNA

Credit: Panthat Sitdatviradee / 123rf

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MEDICINE

SOUNDING-OUT HIGH BLOOD PRESSU RE IN DIABETICS Blood pressure can significantly drop by applying 20 minutes of ultrasound to the forearms of people with type II diabetes and treatment-resistant hypertension, according to Japanese research.

High blood pressure is estimated to cause 7.5 million deaths worldwide and can be difficult to control in some patients with type II diabetes.

Dr Katsunori Nonogaki of Tohoku University’s department of diabetes technology and colleagues enrolled 212 type II diabetes patients with treatment-resistant hypertension.

The patients were divided into four groups. One received 20 minutes of low frequency (800 kHz), low intensity ultrasound irradiation to the forearm. Another received an even lower frequency (500 kHz) of ultrasound irradiation for 20 minutes.

The other two groups were used as controls, receiving a placebo procedure.

The researchers found that blood pressure and pulse rates were significantly reduced after both 800 kHz and 500 kHz irradiation sessions compared to pre-treatment levels. Blood pressure levels were also lower than those of the placebo groups, but significantly so in the case of the 500 kHz treatment.

No adverse effects were found in either group

as a result of the ultrasound treatment.

How ultrasound improves blood pressure in these patients is still unclear, but it might suppress sympathetic nerve activity, responsible for the fight or flight response, by means of nerve pathways from the forearm to the cardiovascular system, the researchers say.

“We do not have specific treatments for resistant hypertension,” says Nonogaki.

“The cost of anti-hypertensive agents for patients is high. Ultrasound has the advantage of being cheap and non-invasive.”

Did you know?

High blood pressure is estimated to cause 7.5 million deaths worldwide.

Nonogaki is currently in the process of looking for international business partners for the Japanese-developed ultrasound device, called NeuroHealer. Also on the team’s agenda is determining whether ultrasound irradiation can help patients with ‘white coat hypertension’ (people who show high blood pressure in a doctor’s office), ‘masked hypertension’ (people who show normal blood pressure in a doctor’s office but elevated blood pressure outside it) or an acute stroke.

The research results were published in the International Journal of Cardiology.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

Applying ultrasound could be a cheap, non-invasive method to address treatment-resistant hypertension.

Credit: Tohoku University

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Further information

Professor Katsunori Nonogaki | E-mail: katsu@trc.med.tohoku.ac.jp Department of Diabetes Technology, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering Tohoku University

MEDICINE

Refining the purification process of therapeutic cells could improve their use for treating cancer and other diseases.

Various cell therapies involve injecting a specific cell type into a patient. These include, for example, bone marrow transplants and some types of immunotherapy that use T-cells (a white blood cell involved in immunity) to help fight cancer.

Before cells are transplanted, they need to be purified to reduce the inclusion of unwanted cell types with the therapeutic cells that clinicians and researchers want to use. This process can be inefficient and limited—where all other cell types are not removed—or can damage the cells needed for a transplant, rendering them useless.

Many current purification techniques use antibodies that bind to cell surface receptors. Because receptors can be common in many cell types, they don’t necessarily select and isolate only the chosen cells, but leave other unwanted cell types in the final treatment.

Hirohide Saito and colleagues at the Center for iPS [induced pluripotent stem] Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University are investigating methods that target signatures within cells rather than on the surface. Their tools look for very specific microRNAs (miRNAs)—small molecules that are found in plants and animals—which they believe will prove more selective and damage fewer cells. miRNAs are active in gene expression and silencing; in other words, they can switch genes on and off.

The team has designed a synthetic tool they call the miRNA switch, which can find these small molecules within the cell. This tool has successfully purified several cell types, so the researchers are able to produce samples of solely heart muscle cells, liver cells, cells that line blood vessels or cells that produce insulin. The percentage of purified cells is far higher than that using standard antibody purification because the markers the tool looks for are more specif-

PURIFYING CELLS TO TREAT D I S E A S E ic than the commonly used antibodies and cell surface receptors. The cells are also less likely to be damaged compared with antibody-based techniques, because they do not need to be handled as much.

This work has been published in the journals Cell Stem Cell and Scientific Reports. The researchers hope to refine the technique so that it is attractive for clinical research and are now working with several groups that are planning cellbased therapies in patients.

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Credit: royaltystockphoto / 123rf

Professor Hirohide Saito | E-mail: hirohide.saito@cira.kyoto-u.ac.jp Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) Kyoto University

Further information

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MEDICINE

TU RNING A TOXOPLASMA PROTEIN INTO A TOOL AGAINST INFEC TION

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017 Credit: Kateryna Kon / 123rf

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MEDICINE

candidates to prevent infection.

T. gondii invades cells with the help of a protein, ROP1, which is secreted within the parasite. The team looked at whether exposure to this protein could protect mice that were later infected with T. gondii. Past studies have shown that ROP1 does create some immune reaction in cell cultures and in animals, but until now, no one has gone on to infect vaccinated mice with live parasites to test the effectiveness of the immune response.

Lau and colleagues took groups of mice and gave them three vaccinations at twoweek intervals. Some received a ROP1 treatment intramuscularly or under the skin, while others received a placebo using the same two injection techniques. Each group of mice was later given lethal doses of a virulent T. gondii strain.

The mice that had received the ROP1 treatment survived longer than the controls, regardless of the method of vaccination. The vaccinated mice survived up to 16 days, whereas the controls all succumbed to T. gondii infection after just nine. The researchers caution, however, that none of the vaccinated mice had complete protection.

The team believes that the protection occurs through cell-mediated immune responses; meaning that the immunity is not generated by antibodies, but by the activation of molecules in the cell. Although this work is promising, further work needs to be done to investigate other agents that could be combined with ROP1 to achieve better results, or even complete protection against the parasitic disease.

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Understanding how the toxoplasmosis parasite invades cells could result in a vaccine candidate against the disease.

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease that most severely affects people with a weakened immune system. Caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, it spreads due to consumption of undercooked meat and exposure to cat faeces. Although it can be mild, causing only flu-like symptoms, it can lead to brain problems such as lesions and encephalitis, in addition to other neurological disorders. It is not generally spread between humans, but can be passed to an unborn child if a pregnant woman is infected.

Current treatment options for toxoplasmosis are limited. Yee-Ling Lau and colleagues at the University of Malaya wanted to investigate potential vaccine

2017

Associate Professor Lau Yee Ling | E-mail: lauyeeling@um.edu.my Department of Parasitology University of Malaya

Further information

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MEDICINE Fast, cost-effective electrochemical platforms show promise for highly-sensitive detection of different strains of influenza and diarrhoea-causing pathogens.

Sending patient samples to the lab for analysis takes time and can delay treatment. To address this, researchers are developing a suite of diagnostic tools featuring tiny semiconductor crystals, known as quantum dots, and dye-coated silica nanoparticles. These platforms can be configured to detect multiple pathogens at the same time to further improve their functionality at the point of care.

Recent advances in the field demonstrated by researchers based at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Thailand include the simultaneous measurement of DNA from three organisms (Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella and Shigella) responsible for diarrhoeal dis-

eases. The team has also configured a platform to identify DNA from four different strains of influenza virus.

“Simultaneous detection provides users with more information and saves time, which makes the sensors more cost-effective,” explains Werasak Surareungchai, head of the Bio and Chemical Sensor Research Group at KMUTT. “In addition, the total sample size required for detecting all of the biological targets is typically much smaller than for conventional methods because these devices require just a single sample.”

To create its biosensors, the group employs DNA sequences that bind to specific bacteria, viruses or other disease-causing microorganisms. During formulation, the DNA sequence is attached to either a quantum dot or a silica nanoparticle, which acts as a label or marker and al-

lows any binding events to be readily identified in a patient sample.

Because the quantum dots are made of different metals (lead, cadmium and zinc), they produce different colours of photoluminescence and react at different voltages, with distinct current peaks in response to a voltage sweep, which can be used to identify their presence.

By exploiting this behaviour in their biosensor, the researchers engineer the simultaneous detection of multiple pathogens using a stepped waveform.

In their silica nanoparticle-based devices, the scientists trap different dye molecules, each targeting a different microorganism inside the particles to enable analysis. Again, the dyes respond at different voltages, allowing the team to pinpoint the presence of several pathogens in the sample at the same time.

M U LT I P L E X E D B I O S E N S O R S TO B E N E F I T H E A LT H CA R E

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017 Credit: Dzmitry Melnikau / 123rf

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Further information

Associate Professor Werasak Surareungchai | E-mail: werasak.sur@kmutt.ac.th Division of Biotechnology, School of Bioresources and Technology King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi

Eliza Stefaniw | Email: eliza.ste@kmutt.ac.th Research, Innovation, and Partnerships Office King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

Life Photonics Using light-based technologies for a sustainable future.

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Photomuliplier tubes (PMT), multi-pixel photon counter – si photomultipliers (MPPC), avalanche photodiodes (APD) and PIN PDs are capable of low-light-level detection.

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The EX-mini L12530 is a compact excimer lamp light source designed for R&D work. It is small and light enough to carry anywhere for conducting simple yet accurate experiments, evaluations and tests.

Simple Simple > Few Hundreds VDC > Several Tens of VDC 4 7 5 10 ~ 10 10 Not always necessary Not always necessary Middle Middle Fast Fast

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2017

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MEDICINE

T H E J A M A I CA C H E R R Y T H AT F I G H T S I N F EC T I O N S A common roadside tree contains chemicals that could provide antibiotics in the future.

A small roadside flowering tree introduced to South-East Asia from Latin America exhibits both antimicrobial and antifungal activity.

Researchers at the University of the Philippines, Diliman analysed the leaves and stems of Muntingia calabura for the presence of biologically active compounds called phytochemicals. They also tested leaf and stem ethanol extracts from the tree against four different types of bacteria and a fungus.

Previous studies have demonstrated anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, analgesic and antioxidant properties in the tree’s leaves, as well as cytotoxicity against leukaemia cells in its roots.

“The results of our study indicate that M. calabura is an alternative source of antibacterial agents against P. aeruginosa and S. aureus. The high degree of activity against C. albicans is one of the significant findings that have not been reported in other previously published studies,” the researchers wrote in their paper published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine.

Credit: quangpraha / 123rf

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

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They found that the leaves contained six phytochemicals known for their medicinal and physiological activities while the stems contained five. They also found that extracts from the leaves and stems of the plant had significant antifungal activity against Candida albicans, which causes yeast infections in the mouth, skin and vagina. The extracts also showed significant antibacterial properties against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which commonly causes hospital infections, and Staphylococcus aureus, which causes skin infections.

The leaves and bark from this tree, commonly known as the Jamaica cherry or the strawberry tree, are used in Peru as an antiseptic and to treat swollen feet. Its leaves are often used in Latin America to treat stomach ulcers. In the Philippines, its flowers are used to treat headaches and to provide relief from the early stages of colds.

Further information

The results are promising but further research is needed.

Phytochemical profiles of the same species vary from one region to another, most likely due to variations in growing conditions. “Different stressors may emphasize the production of one metabolite over another in response to the various needs of the plant,” the researchers noted, including variations in altitude, carbon dioxide levels, and the presence of insects and pathogens. This, they believe, could lead to slight variations in the types and amounts of phytochemicals found in M. calabura grown in the Philippines compared to other parts of the world.

The team recommends further testing of M. calabura extracts against other types of fungi. The researchers have already started testing the effects of the tree’s extracts on multidrug-resistant bacteria.

Raquel O. Rubio | E-mail: raquelrubio@gmail.com Biological Research and Services Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute University of the Philippines Diliman

Juliana Janet M. Puzon | E-mail: janetmpuzon@gmail.com Institute of Biology University of the Philippines Diliman

MEDICINE

Credit for insert: Chaikom Atichayo / 123rf

Analysing compounds of bacterial origin in our breath may help to identify a serious pneumonia-causing pathogen.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia is a serious threat to the recovery of patients who are already critically ill and being treated in an intensive care unit (ICU). It is caused by a host of pathogens and diagnosis is difficult and often invasive. Aggressive treatment can lead to antibiotic misuse and ultimately resistance, which only adds to the complexity of treating the condition.

Researchers in China have found that an easy and non-invasive technique for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the breath of ICU patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia could be used to identify infection with Acinetobacter baumannii, one of many pneumonia-causing bacteria.

researchers were interested in particular in VOCs of bacterial origin, and collected and identified them using a technique called mass spectrometry.

The researchers found that they could detect VOCs from bacteria grown in culture, as a necessary control for the system, and from patients’ breath. As this was a prospective study, the researchers already knew who among the 60 patients enrolled in the study was positive for A. baumannii and who was not. Interestingly, the team found that A. baumannii grown in culture emitted nine different VOCs, while they detected only eight A. baumannii-related VOCs from patients’ breaths. Unexpectedly, only four VOCs were common to both groups, leading the researchers to warn against applying the results from culture tests in clinical practice without a quality check.

A. baumannii poses a special challenge because, in addition to causing disease, it can harmlessly colonize the lungs. However, it is very difficult for clinicians to distinguish between these two states. What’s more, treating a harmless colonization could lead to antibiotic resistance.

The researchers, led by Dr Kejing Ying at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, tested the feasibility of using VOCs from the breath of patients to detect an A. baumannii ‘signature’ that could reliably distinguish the presence of the bacterium and its status in the lung (colonization or open infection). A large variety of gaseous molecules can be found in the exhaled human breath. In this case,

The team also investigated to determine if VOCs from patients could be used to differentiate between A. baumannii colonization and infection. They used a statistical tool called ‘principal component analysis’ to show that the VOCs could be used to discriminate between these two states with a specificity and sensitivity of about percent. While further validation is required, especially when it comes to translating VOCs’ culture data into clinical practice, in the future it may be possible to ‘smell pneumonia’ right at the patient’s bedside.

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Credit: Yuriy Klochan / 123rf

Dr Kejing Ying | E-mail: zrjzk@zju.edu.cn Respiratory Department, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

‘SMELLING’ P N E U M O N I A - CAU S I N G B AC T E R I A I N O U R B R E AT H

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MEDICINE

Did you know?

China’s social media site Weibo had 100 million daily users and 222 million subscribers in 2015.

Source: www.businessofapps.com/sina-weibo-revenue-and-statistics/

Social networking sites could be used to monitor and respond to global disease outbreaks.

That social networking sites are a pervasive force won’t come as a surprise to the billions of users worldwide. But how effective are they when it comes to informing the public health response to disease outbreaks? To answer this question and provide clear, quantitative data on how social media supports disease monitoring and response, a joint study between the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Institute of High Performance Computing and Singapore’s Ministry of Health examined the 2013 avian flu outbreak in China.

Avian influenza A (H7N9) is a severe viral infection characterized by pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

China announced its first three human cases in March 2013. International concern about the impact of this infection on global health and security grew quickly.

Obtaining documented information on cases is key to limiting disease spread. To assess the efficacy and accuracy of social media in reporting incidents, researchers compared the timing of reporting new cases by means of conventional news agencies, public health agency reports

(like the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China and the World Health Organization), and posts from Sina Weibo, a popular social networking site with more than 500 million registered users at the time of the outbreak.

Their results illustrate that Weibo was significantly faster in reporting new cases of infection than conventional reporting sites and public health agency reports.

Weibo also provided access to additional crowdsourced information, such as updates on patients’ health conditions, exposure history and family contacts, which were not readily available through official sources. This rapid disclosure of information helped accelerate official responses and recording by Chinese health authorities. In addition, the authorities were able to leverage Weibo as an interactive platform for risk communication to the general public, by holding, for example, real time question and answer sessions.

The researchers conclude that there is significant potential for social media monitoring to be included in mainstream disease surveillance and response systems. Their research also indicates that it could provide an early warning system for unusual public health events abroad.

S O C I A L M E D I A AT T H E FRONTLINE OF DISEASE SURVEILLANCE ASIA RE SE ARCH NE WS 2017 Credit: DENYS Rudyi / 123rf

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Further information

Dr Yang Yinping | E-mail: yangyp@ihpc.a-star.edu.sg Institute of High Performance Computing Agency for Science, Technology and Research

MEDICINE

U S I N G N A N O PA RT I C L E S TO D E T EC T D E A D LY V I R U S E S

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Professor Jianhua Hao or Dr Mo Yang | E-mails: jh.hao@polyu.edu.hk or mo.yang@polyu.edu.hk The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Credit: jezper / 123rf

A system composed of two different types of nanoparticles can be used to accurately, sensitively and quickly detect viruses.

The earlier a viral infection is detected, the more effective the treatment. Currently available tests are accurate but require a long time and/or specialized personnel, which are not a given in many outbreak settings. To address this, a team of researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University developed a biosensor that detects Ebola and avian influenza subtype H7 viruses.

The team prepared gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) carrying ‘probes’ derived from the viral sample being tested. They also tagged ‘upconversion nanoparticles’ (UCNPs), which emit green light when hit by a near infrared laser, with probes specific for influenza virus H7 or Ebola. If the sample contains one of the two viruses, the two types of nanoparticles interact, causing the green light emitted by the laser-targeted UCNPs to dim. This process takes place in a short period of time (two hours in the case of the influenza test) and is quantifiable.

The system has proven to be very specific: using viral samples on the AuNPs that were only slightly different from the UCNP viral-specific tags did not yield results. The researchers then anchored the nanoparticles on a nanoporous alumina platform instead of having the two components in liquid solution. This increased the sensitivity of the assay and enabled the detection of ‘femtomolar’ amounts of virus: equivalent to the lower limit of detection in tests currently used in clinical practice. This is a crucial level of sensitivity, especially in the case of Ebola where early treatment can save lives.

The team is now planning to test the device on various subtypes of influenza and then move on to the fabrication of a multi-target detection platform that can simultaneously detect various subtypes of influenza viruses. The system is still at the research and development stage, but the researchers think it may become available in two to three years.

Further information

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seconds from folder

MEDICINE

E X P LO R I N G ECO - H E A LT H IN CHINA AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA An international research team aims to protect human health and the environment by improving agricultural practices in four Asian countries.

As nations rapidly develop, agriculture intensifies, providing numerous economic benefits. But intensification can also damage the environment and pose serious health risks.

Human health depends on the well-being of surrounding ecosystems. This has led to an area of study called ‘eco-health’. The Field Building Leadership Initiative, supported

by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to address

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

of at least one pesticide, even though the region switched to ‘low toxic’ pesticides in the early 2000s. The team distributed informational calendars and performed street theatre in villages to educate the farmers about how to reduce pesticides and use them safely.

Another team found an increase in the incidence of dengue and chikungunya around the rubber plantation areas in eastern Thailand, while the rubber workers had limited knowledge of these vector-borne diseases. Heavy metals and the bacteria E. coli and Salmonella were also found to be contaminating water in the area. Inappropriate disposal and handling of chemicals, including poor self-protection and sanitation, were observed. Apart from providing health education, the research team promoted the use of insecticide-impregnated screen jackets as one self-protection measure.

A pilot vector-control intervention introduced Credit: International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) super-sterile male mosMembers of the research team performed skits on village sidewalks quitoes into the environto raise awareness about pesticides and (top right) conducted a survey ment to reduce vector in a potato field in Yuanmou County, Yunnan province of China. populations and risk to the the associated health risks of intensive diseases they transmit. agricultural practices in South-East Asia In Vietnamese communes, the and China. Over the past five years, the group tested biogas—fuel produced using international group has investigated specific human and animal waste—and found the problems and potential eco-health solutions wastewater resulting from its production in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. exceeded standards for the bacteria E. coli The scientists tested urine samples and Salmonella, the parasite Giardia, and from farmers in Yuanmou, a key vegeta- other harmful contaminants. Biogas wasteble-growing region in China. Twenty-eight water used as fertilizer also put farmers at per cent of the samples contained traces high risk of diarrhoea. Villagers appreciated

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Further information

Hung Nguyen-Viet | E-mail: H.Nguyen@cgiar.org International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

having a biogas expert speak to them about proper management, and some villages implemented new sanitation rules as a result of the project.

Almost 30% of Indonesia’s milk production occurs in West Java. However, research in the West Java district of Pangalengan revealed that smallholder dairy farmers Credit: ILRI struggled with low milk yields and quality, and poor farm sanitation practices. The researchers developed ways to convert cow waste and earthworm faeces into fertilizer. They also developed a food supplement for cows made of molasses, probiotics, turmeric, the leaves of star gooseberry and earthworms.

These not only created a new source of income for farmers, they also proved effective in increasing farmers’ yields.

As a result of the Field Building Leadership Initiative, eco-health has been integrated into the curricula of four universities in South-East Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia) and China. Also, more than 400 professionals and graduate students attended workshops across the region to learn about eco-health and leadership, building a new generation of eco-health professionals.

While influencing decision makers to adopt eco-health policies remains a challenge, the Field Building Leadership Initiative underscored that headway has been made through networking and engaging with local communities and other stakeholders.

Arlyne Beeche | E-mail: abeeche@idrc.ca Senior Program Officer International Research Development Centre (IDRC)

MEDICINE

A 3D illustration of the cell membrane and its lipid bilayer

Credit: Kateryna Kon / 123rf

S O LV I N G A CELL MEMBRANE M Y ST E R Y sides with fluorescent markers attached at specific locations. They determined which ones accurately mimicked real gangliosides, partitioning into rafts in the model system.

When the team inserted the new analogues into a living cell and used high-definition, single fluorescent-molecule imaging, they were finally able to directly document the actions of specific gangliosides in a living cell for the first time.

The researchers observed how gangliosides form lipid rafts with cholesterol and a receptor protein called CD59. It turns out these molecules interact transiently for only tens of milliseconds to form a lipid raft, and then quickly move to form a new raft.

That’s why no one could observe the rafts in real cells before.

“Our findings established the concept of dynamic [lipid rafts]: their constituent molecules assemble to form [rafts], do their jobs [quickly] and then move away for the next assembly to perform the next task,” says Dr Kenichi Suzuki of Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences and the paper’s co-author.

The research team next plans to use the fluorescent analogues to investigate how gangliosides regulate the activation of other receptors.

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Associate Professor Kenichi Suzuki | E-mail: ksuzuki@frontier.kyoto-u.ac.jp Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) Kyoto University

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Scientists have developed new fluorescent probes that prove the existence of cell membrane structures called ‘lipid rafts’, allowing researchers to study how toxins and viruses invade cells.

Scientists from Japan, India and the US have observed lipid rafts in live cells for the first time. These rafts are active sections of the cell membrane responsible for signal transduction as well as the entry of toxins into cells.

The existence of lipid rafts had been assumed for over 25 years, but had never been observed in living cells.

To solve this enigma, the team focused on the behaviours of gangliosides: lipid molecules that were thought to play a central role in forming lipid rafts.

However, scientists only vaguely understood how gangliosides work because, until now, they lacked probes that could accurately track the lipids’ movements.

Previous ganglioside analogues (in which florescent dye is attached) did not partition into rafts, even in artificial model systems.

Researchers suspect the dyes were hydrophobic and altered how the ganglioside interacted with the cell membrane.

So, instead of just attaching a fluorescent marker to a ganglioside, the team chemically synthesized four whole ganglio-

Further information

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MEDICINE Mathematical formulas that model how deadly mosquito-borne diseases spread can help medical researchers accurately predict how real-life outbreaks develop and find countermeasures.

Malaria is just one of many potentially fatal illnesses that spread through the same mechanism: mosquitoes draw blood from infected humans during blood meals then inject that infection into other humans during later meals. In 2015, the World Health Organization estimated that about 214 million people in the world contracted malaria, killing nearly half a million.

For just over a century, epidemiologists have used increasingly complex and accurate mathematical models to try to predict how diseases such as malaria spread. Now, Malaysian computer scientists are designing a ‘generic mosquito model’ that promises to improve the way medical authorities can track the spread of many types of epidemics.

Credit: mycteria / 123rf The researchers liken what they call the ‘random walks’ of mosquito and human populations moving through space and time to a large-scale form of Brownian motion, a physics term that describes the random movement of tiny solid particles suspended in a fluid. The collection of formulas they used to model these random walks is described as a ‘spatio-temporal’ model because it incorporates the space- and time-related movements of mosquitos and humans.

Using the formulas, the team modelled predictions of the spread and density of malaria over time in four districts in

Sarawak, Malaysia using more than a dozen variables ranging from diffusion times for insects and humans, to how long a mosquito took to bite someone. They then compared the models with the actual spread of the disease as documented by medical authorities. They found the model to be extremely accurate in two districts and slightly less so but still useful in the other two.

The research team has tested the generic model with malaria, but say it should also apply to other serious mosquito-borne illnesses that include dengue, yellow fever, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis and the Zika virus. Mosquitoes spread each of these diseases while moving randomly through time and space, infecting humans that are doing much the same thing.

Mathematical models based on understandings of these time and space factors, and a disease’s host and pathogens, can be used to forecast the spread and prevalence of infections. They can also help to analyse control measures, such as vaccinations or mosquito nets, to find out which ones best control a particular disease’s spread.

The results of this study are encouraging, and the researchers say they will now test their model further on other diseases, beginning with dengue fever. They also plan to refine two elements of the model: a module that accounts for spacing between disease subjects and another that can be used to help identify which measures best control particular diseases.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

U N D E R STA N D I N G MALARIA WITH M AT H E M AT I C S

2017 Credit: server / 123rf

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Further information

Associate Professor Dr Jane Labadin | E-mail: ljane@unimas.my Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

MEDICINE

A PA I N - F R E E T E ST I N G D E V I C E FO R DIABETES PAT I E NTS

Credit: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

A new biological sensor can detect glucose levels in saliva more accurately and cost-efficiently than the conventional blood test.

Diabetes is a metabolic disease defined by high blood sugar levels, and can affect organs such as the heart, eyes and kidneys. According to the World Health Organization, over 420 million people suffer from this condition worldwide. People with diabetes must monitor their blood glucose levels regularly and frequently, but the existing method is invasive, as it requires taking a blood sample from the patient’s fingertip.

Dr Yan Feng and his research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have developed a highly sensitive, accurate, flexible and affordable biological sensor that can detect glucose levels in saliva.

The device is based on an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), a highly sensitive and easy-to-fabricate platform for biosensors that can convert biological elements such as ions, lactose and glucose into electrical currents. The challenge with OECTs, however, is to create a selective biosensor that is only sensitive to a specific substance, such as glucose, because OECTs can also pick up electrical currents from other biochemicals. What’s more, since the amount of glucose in saliva is very small, it is difficult to detect.

In order to overcome these issues, the PolyU researchers built the OECT platform using a glucose oxidase enzyme, which is only sensitive to glucose. The team then coated the enzyme with two types of polymer layers to prevent interference from other substances in saliva, thereby increasing both the selectivity and sensitivity of the device.

The researchers say the new biosensor is nearly 1,000 times more sensitive than the conventional blood glucose testing method. It is also flexible and has the potential, after further research, to be incorporated into wearable technologies to monitor glucose levels from sweat, the researchers add. Its low manufacturing cost also makes it suitable for mass production.

Furthermore, by changing the enzyme, the biosensor could be used to monitor other substances such as uric acid or cholesterol levels, for example.

Yan plans to further optimize the current sensor’s features, such as its stability and geometrical design, and improve its fabrication technique to be more suitable for commercial mass production. He also wants to develop different types of biological sensors using the same platform.

2017

Credit: Dmitry Lobanov / 123rf

Dr Yan Feng | E-mail: feng.yan@polyu.edu.hk Department of Applied Physics The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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MEDICINE

PREDATORY BACTERIA:THE NEW ‘LIVING’ ANTIBIOTIC ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017 Credit: royaltystockphoto / 123rf

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria.

MEDICINE

A predatory bacterium attached to its prey

2017

Professor Robert J. Mitchell | E-mail: esgott@unist.ac.kr School of Life Sciences Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

teams in Turkey and Romania to manufacture antibacterial fabrics infused with violacein that can effectively kill S. aureus.

The team is also working on the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus.

This is an obligate predator of bacteria, normally found in river water or soil. It attacks and enters the bacteria it must predate on to survive, growing and dividing repeatedly. Once inside, it eats the host from the inside out. When it has had its fill, it ruptures the host bacterium’s cell membrane and exits, ready to attack the next bacterium. Previous research showed that B. bacteriovorus does not harm human cells and can attack over 100 different bacterial pathogens.

The researchers examined how the predatory ability of B. bacteriovorus was affected by indole, a well-known metabolite produced by E. coli and many other bacteria. Indole regulates various biological functions in bacteria, for example regulating the stability of small DNA molecules, as well as functioning as a signalling molecule, which different communities of bacteria use to ‘talk’ and coordinate gene expression within a population. The researchers tested the predatory ability of B. bacteriovorus by setting up a bacterial version of a gladiator contest in flasks.

They put various bacteria face to face with B. bacteriovorus and then artificially added different concentrations of indole and examined how this affected B. bacteriovorus’ predatory behaviour. They found that B. bacteriovorus takes much longer to attack E. coli—a common bacterial strain that can cause food poisoning, infections and fever—in the presence of indole. To make sure the predator-prey relationship was not influenced by E. coli’s own production of indole, they also tested the predatory ability of B. bacteriovorus on another food poison-causing bacterium called Salmonella, which does not produce indole. The result was the same: in high concentrations, indole even blocks and prevents the predatory bacteria from attacking altogether.

Professor Mitchell hopes this research is a step in the direction of understanding how B. bacteriovorus can be used and controlled to attack specific bacteria that cause illness, while avoiding ‘good’ bacteria necessary for daily survival. This could help in further development of ‘living antibiotics’.

Credit: UNIST AEMLab

Antibiotic resistance is one of medicine’s most pressing problems. Now, a team from Korea is tackling this in a unique way: using bacteria to fight bacteria.

Before the discovery of penicillin in 1928, millions of lives were lost to relatively simple microbial infections. Since then, antibiotics have transformed modern medicine. The World Health Organization estimates that, on average, antibiotics add 20 years to each person’s life. However, the overuse of antibiotics has put pressure on bacteria to evolve resistance against these drugs, leading to the emergence of untreatable superbugs.

Now, researchers at South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) aim to fight fire with fire by launching predatory bacteria capable of attacking other bacteria without harming human cells. “Bacteria eating bacteria. How cool is that?” asks Professor Robert Mitchell, the team leader. He and his colleagues are also developing a natural compound called violacein to tackle Staphylococcus, a group of around 30 different bacteria known to cause skin infections, pneumonia and blood poisoning. Some Staphylococcus bacteria such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are resistant to antibiotics, making infections harder to treat.

Violacein is a so-called ‘bisindole’: a metabolite produced by bacteria from the condensation of two molecules of tryptophan (an essential amino acid used in many organisms to ensure normal functioning and avoid illness and death). This compound is vibrant purple in colour and of interest to researchers for its anticancer, antifungal and antiviral properties. Researchers have discovered that it can stop bacteria from reproducing, and even kill the multidrug resistant bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, when used in the right doses. It also works well in conjunction with other existing antibiotics.

Mitchell and his team isolated a bacterial strain, called D. violaceinigra strain.

NI28, from forest soil collected near Ulsan in South Korea. Using a technique called high performance liquid chromatography to separate and quantify compounds produced by the bacteria, they showed that strain N128 is capable of producing large quantities of crude violacein. They are now collaborating with fabric manufacturer Yeejoo Co., the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology, and research

Further information

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MEDICINE Genetic studies on Malaysia’s Orang Asli peoples could lead to tailored medical advice that is more appropriate for their unique makeup.

Investigations into the health of indigenous Orang Asli peoples in Malaysia suggest that changes of lifestyle and modernization have increased their risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Genetic analyses also show that they have a lower metabolic capacity, requiring lower doses of many common painkillers. Taken together, researchers believe that better prevention and education programs are needed, along with the implementation of precision medicine in the Orang Asli.

I M P R OV I N G T H E H E A LT H O F F R AG I L E T R I B E S I N M A L AY S I A

The Orang Asli, or ’first people’ of Peninsular Malaysia, comprise less than 1% of the Malaysian population. Despite some snapshots of their health, there is not a great deal of Did you know? medical information on these tribes, several of which are categorized as fragile.

In 2008 there were only 178,963 Since the late 1950s, the Government of Malaysia, along with non-government agencies, Orang Asli in Malaysia compared has tried to bring advancement and improve the quality of life in these communities, but they to the general population of are still reported to have lower health status compared to other ethnic groups on the peninsula.

27.3 million.

The average life expectancy of the Orang Asli is 54 years for females and 52 for males.

Credit: LRGS Evolutionary Genomics Orang Asli, MOHE, UiTM, USM & UKM

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Mohd Zaki Salleh, Lay Kek Teh and colleagues of the Universiti Teknologi MARA have conducted medical examinations and biochemical analyses, which they report in BMC Public Health. They observed lower total cholesterol than in the control population of urban Malays. But their HDL—the good cholesterol that acts to clear LDL, the bad cholesterol, away from the arteries—was lower, conferring a greater risk of cardiovascular disease. Higher insulin levels were observed in many of the tribes and this, alongside higher fasting plasma glucose levels, suggests an increased risk of diabetes.

The team also characterized CYP2C9 gene variants that metabolize a range of drugs, from warfarin and phenytoin to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen. They show, in a study published in Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics, that large numbers of the Orang Asli are likely to have reduced metabolic capacity and therefore would require a lower dose of drugs that are metabolized by CYP2C9.

A lack of understanding of this could lead to drug failure or problems with toxicity at normal dosage levels. The researchers believe this work is important in delivering precision medicine to these tribes. Combining this knowledge with improving education and messages around lifestyle and disease prevention could lead to better strategies and healthier communities in these vulnerable groups.

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Further information

Professor Lay Kek Teh | E-mail: tehlaykek@puncakalam.uitm.edu.my Professor Mohd Zaki Salleh | E-mail: zakisalleh@puncakalam.uitm.edu.my Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE) Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE) Universiti Teknologi MARA Universiti Teknologi MARA

MEDICINE

Did you know?

Drug responses are known to vary based on the genetic profiles of patients. This is why personalized medicine is highly desirable to prevent adverse effects. Researchers are working on developing diagnostic tools to determine more effective and safer medications and doses that are tailored based on the variations in patients’ genes.

Screening patients for a gene variant before starting epilepsy treatment could reduce the incidence of life-threatening drug reactions.

Drug-induced hypersensitivity reactions (DIHRs) are serious and life threatening. A common example is the use of the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine, but the mechanisms that trigger it are unclear. Current scientific consensus holds that people who have a specific variation of the ‘human leukocyte antigen B’ (HLA-B) gene, which provides the code for making a protein that plays a critical role in the immune system, are more at risk of DIHR. However, the mechanism linking this gene to DIHR is currently unknown. As this specific variation, called HLA-B*15:02, is fairly common in people of South-East Asian descent, this is a serious problem for clinicians in the region.

Researchers at Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor in Malaysia used computer modelling to mimic and analyse how the protein encoded by HLA-B*15:02 interacts with a range of antiepileptic medications. The researchers used various software to mimic how drugs interact with a specific region of the HLA protein that is crucial for its normal functionality.

Since the HLA complex acts like a sort of identity card in our cells, anything interacting with it other than our own immune cells can cause problems.

Carbamazepine and another eight out of 26 antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) that were tested were found to bind strongly to the

The image shows how researchers predict AEDs (the multicolour sticks) bind to the HLA complex (pale green and grey plus magenta-coloured peptide).

Professor Mohd Zaki Salleh | E-mail: zakisalleh@puncakalam.uitm.edu.my Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE) Universiti Teknologi MARA

Further information

2017

Credit: Universiti Teknologi MARA

Professor Lay Kek Teh | E-mail: tehlaykek@puncakalam.uitm.edu.my Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute (iPROMISE) Universiti Teknologi MARA

HLA complex in the simulation model.

The team believes this strong binding is behind DIHRs in patients who carry the variant gene.

The remaining AEDs that did not show strong binding interactions with the HLA-B*15:02 complex, including clonazepam, nitrazepam and stiripentol, could be safer options for patients that have already developed adverse reactions to other antiepileptic drugs.

Testing for HLA-B*15:02, which can be done in as few as four hours, should be incorporated into clinical practice as soon as possible, recommends the study’s lead researcher Mohd Zaki Salleh.

ASIA RE SE ARCH NE WS

Credit main image: lightwise / 123rf

T H E G E N E T H AT T U R N S E P I L E P S Y T R E AT M E N T D E A D LY

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MEDICINE A non-coding RNA molecule, which sends chemical messages from bone-absorbing to bone-forming cells, could be playing a role in osteoporosis.

Researchers from Hong Kong Baptist University and colleagues have demonstrated that a molecule called miR-214-3p plays a role in inhibiting bone formation. MiR-214-3p is a microRNA (miRNA): a non-coding RNA involved in regulating gene expression to coordinate biological processes.

The molecule was already known to be involved in regulating sugar production in the liver, in addition to playing a crucial role in skeletal disorders.

O ST E O P O R O S I S : KILL THE MESSENGER Did you know?

Osteoporosis is a chronic condition in which the bones become brittle and weak. It can affect men and women of all ages but white and Asian women past the age of menopause are at higer risk. Physical exercise, not smoking, and limiting alcohol consumption can reduce the risk of its occurrence.

The team examined the expression of 12 miRNAs—previously reported to be involved in the regulation of bone metabolism—in whole serum, serum transport structures called ‘exosomes’, and bone samples from 40 elderly female patients with low-energy bone fractures. They found that the only miRNA that increased with age in all tissue samples was miR-214-3p. When they compared its levels between elderly women with and without fractures, they found they were increased in both groups but the increase was accelerated in the group with fractures. Similar results were found in aging mice from which the ovaries were removed. Bone analyses also showed a reduced rate of bone formation in these mice.

The team then examined miR-214-3p levels in genetically modified mice in which miR-214-3p was specifically ‘turned on’ in bone-absorbing cells known as osteoclasts.

MiR-214-3p levels were increased in osteoclasts, bone tissue and serum exosomes in these mice, compared to controls, but not in other cells. These mice also had lower bone mass compared to control mice. Bone formation later increased, however, when the mice were injected with a miR-214-3p antagonist, which specifically targets miR-214-3p in osteoclasts.

The team also labelled exosomes present in osteoclasts belonging to the genetically modified mice. When these cells were cultured together with ‘osteoblasts’, they found evidence of labelled particles inside these bone-forming cells. Also, when mice were injected with the labelled exosomes, a fluorescent signal was detected in their bones and labelled particles were detected in their osteoblasts.

The results of the study suggest that miR-214-3p plays a role in regulating bone formation through increasing osteoclast activity and reducing osteoblast activity. MiR-214-3p is also involved in a messenger system between the two types of cells, in which it is transferred by means of exosomes from one cell type to the other.

Drugs that inhibit miR-214-3p in osteoclasts could be used as a potential strategy for reversing osteoporosis, the researchers conclude in their study published in the journal Nature Communications. The team is currently developing an innovative drug design strategy that targets miR-214, which would be applied to a series of non-coding RNA targets.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

The bone modeling process In a healthy body, osteoblasts and osteoclasts work together to maintain the balance between bone loss and formation. In osteoporosis, however, this equilibrium is disrupted.

2017 Credit: designua / 123rf

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Further information

Professor Aiping Lu or Dr Ge Zhang | E-mails: aipinglu@hkbu.edu.hk or zhangge@hkbu.edu.hk Institute for Advancing Translation Medicine in Bone and Joint Diseases Hong Kong Baptist University

MEDICINE Researchers in Hong Kong have developed a novel surgical robotic system that provides tactile feedback and is capable of single-incision and natural orifice (incision-free) robotic surgery. The system minimizes surgical trauma and is safer than currently available robotic systems.

The new system applies the expertise of systems engineer Professor Yung Kai Leung from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in making precision instruments for outer space, with valuable input on robotic surgery from Professor Yeung Chung Kwong, honorary clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong. They developed a robotic system that has arms driven by internal micromotors and up to ten degrees of freedom in movement. It has been tested in three consecutive

animal surgeries: most recently for conducting a one-hour-long gall bladder removal in a live pig.

Currently there is only one dominant surgical robotic system on the market.

The system is expensive and has many limitations, including the need for multiple incisions, lack of tactile feedback and bulkiness. Furthermore, it is not designed for natural orifice—or incision-free—robotic surgery. By contrast, the new robotic system can be inserted into a single, small incision or even a natural orifice and expanded inside the human body to perform various surgical operations.

The robotic arms are driven by custommade micromotors adjacent to the end-effectors, allowing them to be operated with high precision and providing good feedback to the surgeon on the

amount of force applied.

The team plans to continue to test the new robotic system in animal and cadaver models in more complicated procedures, using a single-incision and natural-orifice approach. Their objective is to apply this system to various robotic surgeries in humans in the near future.

Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University are experienced in making innovative sophisticated instruments for deep space exploration missions.

Their work has led to the production of small-sized, lightweight and high-precision instruments. They are now working on applying these space technologies for civilian purposes. The robotic surgical system is one obvious example of this and they hope it will allow for minimally invasive surgery, enhancing patient well-being.

S PAC E T EC H N O LO G I E S I M P R OV E S U R G E R I E S B AC K O N E A RT H

Professor Yung Kai Leung | E-mail: kl.yung@polyu.edu.hk Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Further information

2017

Credit: NISI (HK) Limited

The robotic arms are highly sensitive to touch, have up to ten degrees of movement, and can perform surgical procedures by means of a single incision.

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Credit: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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MEDICINE A new dye might allow researchers to view natural processes in extremely small components of living cells over a prolonged period of time; a previously unattainable feat.

Optical microscopy allows researchers to see and distinguish between objects that are about 200 nanometres (nm) apart. In comparison, a human hair is about 90,000 nm thick. Unfortunately, most objects of interest in biology, such as organelles in cells and proteins, are much smaller than 200 nm.

Biologists have been looking for ways to improve the resolution of microscopes, pioneering the field of super-resolution microscopy. Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is one such improvement: a source of light focuses on a point of interest while the surrounding zone is kept in the dark and toned down, so to speak,

using a special laser to form a background without interferences. This technique is fluorescence-based, using special dyes to tag the cells or structures of interest.

STED microscopy is very effective, allowing researchers to detect objects that are only tens of nanometres apart. However, it does come with its own set of challenges: most importantly, that the special laser used to tone down the background is, counter-intuitively, very intense. Not many dyes can withstand this intensity without losing fluorescence so quickly that only a few images can be taken, which is much too fast for the needs of researchers.

Professor Shigehiro Yamaguchi and Professor Tetsuya Higashiyama from the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules at Nagoya University in Japan have developed a dye, called C-Naphox, that, thanks to a carbon-bonded structure, is very

stable and does not dim even under the harsh conditions of STED microscopy. It is also non-toxic, so it can be used in live cells.

The researchers found that the dye remained stable after two hours of irradiation. When taking multiple images in succession—a key part of super-resolution microscopy as it allows researchers to follow live cells undergoing their natural processes over time—the team found that C-Naphox remained stable after five images. Even after taking 50 images, more than 80% of the C-Naphox signal remained.

In comparison, one of the best options available commercially, a compound called Alexa 488, dimmed almost to invisibility after taking only five images. Once widely available, C-Naphox should enable prolonged recording of live cells using STED microscopy; a previously unattainable feat.

NEW DYE ALLOWS SUPER-IMAGING OF CELLS

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STED microscopy images of cells with C-Naphox remained stable

Molecular structure of C-Naphox STED microscopy images with a commercially available compound

2017 Credit: Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM)

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Further information

Professor Shigehiro Yamaguchi | E-mail: yamaguchi@chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) Nagoya University

Professor Tetsuya Higashiyama | E-mail: higashi@bio.nagoya-u.ac.jp Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) Nagoya University

MEDICINE

A HARDY RODENT WITH ‘ E X T R AO R D I N A R Y ’ A N T I CA N C E R D E F E N C E S Scientists are getting closer to understanding how naked mole rats, the world’s longest living rodent species, avoid cancer, which could lead to safer stem cell therapies for human diseases.

Mole rats live up to 30 years, ten times longer than mice, and captured colonies almost never show any type of cancer.

The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is the longest-living rodent (longevity, 30 years) and exhibits extraordinary resistance to cancer.

Did you know?

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are derived from the early stages of the embryo and are pluripotent, meaning they can differentiate into all different types of tissues. However, researchers have been alarmed by the presence of unknown and possible tumour-promoting cell types in preparations of differentiated human ESCs. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are adult cells that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell-like state. A Japanese team from the research institute RIKEN is conducting clinical studies on the use of human iPSCs for treating retinal disease. In September 2014, a patient with macular degeneration, in which the central portion of the retina deteriorates, received a transplantation—developed from iPSCs derived from the patient’s own cells—of a layer of retina responsible for nourishing retinal cells. So far there has been no report from the research team of tumour growth or any other major adverse effect.

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

Credit: Hokkaido University

Understanding these animals’ anticancer mechanisms may help advance human treatment in the future, according to a collaborative research team from Hokkaido and Keio universities in Japan.

The team took skin tissue from adult mole rats and reprogrammed the cells into a type of stem cell called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Like embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are capable of becoming any type of tissue in the body and scientists

hope human iPSCs can be used to treat diseases. Their major drawback is their tendency to form tumours when immaturely re-transplanted back into animals.

Unlike iPSCs from other animal species, tumours did not form when mole rat iPSCs were inserted into the testes of mice with extremely weak immune systems. Upon further investigation, the team found that a tumour-suppressor gene, called alternative reading frame (ARF), which is normally suppressed in mouse and human iPSCs, remained active in the mole rat iPSCs. The team also found that ERAS, a gene that causes mouse embryonic stem cells and iPSCs to demonstrate tumour-like growth, was inactive in the mole rat iPSCs. The mice grew large tumours when the researchers disabled the ARF gene, forced the expression of the mouse ERAS gene in the mole rat iPSCs, and then inserted them into the mice.

These findings could help researchers figure out how human iPSCs can be used for treating patients without forming tumours. Further research into the detailed mechanisms underlying cancer resistance in the mole rats may contribute to the development of non-tumourigenic human iPSCs, enabling safer cell-based therapeutics, says Kyoko Miura of Hokkaido University.

Associate Professor Kyoko Miura | E-mail: miura@igm.hokudai.ac.jp Biomedical Animal Research Laboratory, Institute for Genetic Medicine Hokkaido University

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2017

MEDICINE

scope. The researchers cultured the cells and demonstrated that they differentiated into a variety of nervous system cells.

They then injected the stem cells into rats whose spinal cords had been cut, and examined samples taken from the injured area regularly up until eight weeks after the injury. They compared these results with those of uninjured rats who did not receive injections, rats with injured cords that did not receive injections, and rats that underwent a sham operation in which the full procedure was done except for cutting of the spinal cord.

No signs of functional or tissue restoration were found in the control groups.

However, in the injured rats given neural stem cell injections, the team found that the stem cells differentiated into three types of nerve cells: oligodendrocytes and astrocytes—which are involved in the production of the protective myelin sheath that surrounds nerves—and neurons.

There were no signs of immunorejection.

However, there were also no signs of functional improvement in the rats in the form of movement of their hind limbs paralyzed by the injury.

The results indicate that injecting stem cells at sites of spinal cord injury can produce relatively normal neurons and other nervous tissue elements, but further studies are needed to promote locomotor recovery, says Marei. One possibility is that eight weeks (the upper limit in this study) is not enough time to restore damaged nerve tracts and neuronal circuitry.

The team previously published research that showed rats with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease also improved following neural stem cell transplants.

2017

S P I N A L I NJ U R Y : T H E H E A L I N G P OW E R OF THE BRAIN

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Neural stem cell therapies could eventually play a role in treating spinal cord injuries.

Researchers in Qatar and Egypt, working with colleagues in Italy and the US, have found that injured spinal cords in rats show signs of tissue regeneration several weeks following injection with neural stem cells.

An estimated 2.5 million people worldwide live with spinal cord injury caused by various types of accidents and falls. “Much research is going into investigating the potential of stem cells in treating this and other neurological conditions,” says Dr Hany Marei of Qatar University Biomedical Research Center.

The team isolated neural stem cells, which specifically differentiate into nerve tissue, from a structure in the front of the brain called the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulbs were removed from human patients undergoing operations to extract brain tumours.

The team first genetically engineered the neural stem cells to carry a protein that causes them to fluoresce under the micro-

Credit: woodoo007 / 123rf

Professor Hany Elsayed Marei | E-mail: hmady@qu.edu.qa Biomedical Research Center Qatar University

Further information

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MEDICINE

THE CANCER-KILLING POWER

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Credit: Sailesh / Wikimedia

Phyllantus niruri (above) and Phyllanthus urinaria are common herbs found throughout the tropics and subtropics that show strong potential as a non-toxic treatment for breast cancer.

Credit: Pinus / Wikimedia

2017 Credit: Lalithamba / Wikimedia

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Further information

Dr Shamala Sekaran | E-mail: shamala@um.edu.my Department of Medical Microbiology University of Malaya

MEDICINE

OF PLANTS

Ancient Chinese herb targets specific tumours

Professor Kyungjae Myung | E-mail: kmyung@ibs.re.kr or kjmyung@unist.ac.kr Center for Genomic Integrity, Institute for Basic Science Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Further information

2017

A team from the Institute for Basic Science at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in Korea and the National Human Genome Research Institute in the US also investigated how another plant extract, called baicalein, successfully shrinks colon tumours in mice. Baicalein comes from Scutellaria baicalensis and Scutellaria lateriflora: flowering herbs, commonly called skullcap, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

While others have confirmed baicalein’s anticancer properties, the team studied how it specifically targets and shrinks cancers that have mismatch DNA repair defects.

When DNA replicates, errors can arise in the nucleotide base pair sequence, like typos in a sentence, creating ‘mismatched DNA’. Usually, mismatch repair (MMR) proteins identify the typo, cut it out, and then the correct sequence can be synthesized. But cells that lack MMR proteins can’t do this, so mismatched DNA base pairs continue to replicate. As errors accumulate, tumours can grow unchecked.

Tumour cells lacking MMR proteins typically resist commonly used chemotherapies.

Baicalein appears to specifically bind to sections of mismatched DNA, which causes the DNA to break apart during replication, ultimately killing the cell.

The researchers implanted baicalein pellets adjacent to MMR protein-deficient colon tumours in mice and found the tumours shrank in size twice as much as similar tumours in mice given a placebo treatment. They also found that mice given a diet enhanced with baicalein formed fewer tumours compared to a control group.

Baicalein shows strong potential for cancer treatment because it has a clear target. It is particularly promising as a colon cancer treatment because about 10% of colon tumours lack mismatch repair proteins. However, it is not close to being ready for clinical applications because its potency is low and may have unintended side effects. Further studies are required to turn the extract into an effective treatment for human patients.

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Researchers are uncovering specific ways that plant extracts target and kill cancerous cells in the breast and colon.

Four species of Phyllanthus, herbs commonly found throughout the tropics and subtropics, pose great potential as nontoxic breast cancer treatments. While their therapeutic properties have been reported, a team from the University of Malaya recently investigated specifically how the plants’ extracts combat breast cancer.

Phyllanthus is a large family of flowering plants with hundreds of species, including chamber bitter, stonebreaker, gale of the wind and leafflower. The research team found that extracts from Phyllanthus niruri, Phyllanthus urinaria, Phyllanthus watsonii and Phyllanthus amarus inhibited the growth and spread of breast cancer cells and induced cell death in two ways.

First, they suppressed two proteins notorious for breaking down the extracellular matrix: a medium that surrounds cells, providing structural and biochemical support. Matrix metalloproteins 2 and 9 break down this medium, giving tumour cells access to the vascular system and enabling them to spread. Phyllanthus extracts block the pathway used by tumours to regulate this process.

The plants also reduce tumour growth by interrupting the cancer’s ability to grow blood vessel cells. Specifically, the plants inhibit the production of a key compound that becomes more abundant during oxygen deficiency and is associated with ‘turning on’ more than 70 genes that favour tumour growth.

This results in reduced blood vessel growth and leads to cell death.

The team found that Phyllanthus urinaria was slightly more effective in targeting cancer cells, perhaps because of the high presence of polyphenol compounds that have antioxidant properties. Years of further animal studies and human clinical trials will be required before the herbs can be used to treat patients.

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MEDICINE

SHINING LIGHT ON DISEASE fluorophore and quencher close to each other and turning down, or ‘quenching’, the fluorophore’s fluorescence. However, when a probe is present in a sample with its complementary target RNA, the probe strand opens up to combine with its target, allowing its detection when light is shone and the fluorophore fluoresces.

This method is widely used, but the response of the hairpin-like probe to its targets is relatively slow.

A team of researchers from Nagoya University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency developed a new probe design based on Cy3 as the fluorophore.

Cy3 and the quencher (nitro methyl red) were incorporated into either end of a linear strand that lacked the self-complementary sequences found in conventional probes. Even so, Cy3 and the quencher were drawn to each other spontaneously to form a highly stable complex in the absence of a target, quenching Cy3’s fluorescence.

2017

RNA detection scheme

In the presence of a complementary target, a strong fluorescent response was observed, which was ten times faster compared to conventional techniques.

The team optimized its design by incorporating two Cy3 residues separated by two nucleotide bases on one end of the probe strand, and two nitro methyl red residues separated by two nucleotide bases on the other end. This optimized design detected RNA with high efficiency and sensitivity.

Because Cy3 and nitro methyl red are able to combine in the probe, quenching fluorescence without the need for self-complementary pairing, “this strategy will be applicable to the design of peptide-based probes,” conclude the researchers in their paper published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials. Peptide probes are chains of linked amino acids that can be designed to bind with specific cell receptors, making them useful in tumour receptor imaging, for example.

Credit: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

The hairpin-shaped molecule rapidly opens, combines with its complementary target and fluoresces brightly.

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Further information

Professor Hiromu Kashida | E-mail: kashida@nubio.nagoya-u.ac.jp Graduate School of Engineering Nagoya University

Mikiko Tanifuji | E-mail: Tanifuji.Mikiko@nims.go.jp Science and Technology of Advanced Materials National Institute for Materials Science

Credit: ktsdesign / 123r

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Cyanine dyes could improve the efficiency of using molecular probes to identify, for example, the presence of a virus or a tumour receptor.

Scientists use fragments of RNA and DNA with specific nucleotide sequences to identify others with complementary sequences, indicating, for example, the presence of a specific virus.

Researchers in Japan have recently improved the existing probing techniques using a cyanine dye called Cy3.

RNA and DNA ‘probes’ are conventionally made using fragments of strands that have nucleotide sequences on either end that complement each other. A fluorescent chemical compound, called a ‘fluorophore’, is added to one end of the probe and a ‘quencher’ is added at the other. In the absence of its complementary ‘target’, the single-stranded probe comes together in a hairpin-like manner, with the complementary sequences at either end of the strand binding together, bringing the

MEDICINE

CAT C H I N G THOSE N A ST Y , LEAKY DRIPS The sensor patch can be embedded into the dressing that fixes a cannula in place.

Further information

2017

Dr Ming-Yuan Cheng | E-mail: chengmy@ime.a-star.edu.sg Institute of Microelectronics Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore

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Credit: A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics

A new adhesive sensor can save patients the discomfort and pain resulting from leaky intravenous drips.

A significant number of hospitalized patients require the insertion of a thin tube, called a cannula, into a vein, usually in their hand or arm, to facilitate easy and sometimes lengthy delivery of drugs. If the vein is small or fragile, such as is often the case in infants and the elderly, or the cannula is misplaced or moves, the drugs can leak into the surrounding tissue, causing swelling, pain, and sometimes, in severe cases, death of the tissues and impaired function of the limb. Clinicians and nurses do monitor the cannula site for leakage, but this can sometimes be challenging and very small leakages can be missed.

Researchers at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Institute of Microelectronics in collaboration with clinicians from KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore have developed an adhesive sensor that can detect as little as two millilitres of leaked fluids. The sensor can be incorporated into the dressing normally used to fix a cannula in place.

It is made of very thin electrodes embedded between two elastic polymer substrates. The electrodes stretch when a leakage into the tissues stretches the skin. This in turn changes the resistance in the sensing electrode, which is detected by a ‘reader’ connected to the sensor. The reader is battery-run and reusable, while the sensor patch is disposable and does not require a battery.

The team has successfully tested its sensor in lab experiments. The researchers next plan to develop a wireless module that can wirelessly alert healthcare workers of a leakage through a mobile application, allowing for immediate intervention. They will also work on making the sensor more cost-effective: they expect it to cost less than US$1 per sensor patch. Further work will include conducting more comprehensive clinical trials for the sensor patch system.

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Ata children and elders inside a nipa hut during a workshop where bamboo musical instruments were used as percussion.

‘ READING’ SONGS A N D N U RT U R I N G C U LT U R E I N THE PHILIPPINES

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Preserving cultural heritage, including access to and use of ancestral lands, can be a real challenge for indigenous communities. A range of cultural memory recall and music workshops with the indigenous Ata of the Philippines aims to empower communities and validate legal claims related to the Indigenous People’s Rights Act. The Ata*, a coastal people living on the Boracay Island of Visayas in the Philippines, have long sought to validate their ancestral land claims. Even though the Certificate for Ancestral Domain Title was provided by the government, some individuals and businesses continue to claim the Ata land as their own. To support this legal challenge and simultaneously document the Ata’s language and cultural practices, Dr Maria Christine Muyco is conducting participatory action research that emphasizes collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience and social history.

Muyco uses cultural memory recall and music workshops to record indigenous practices. People are encouraged to share their culture through storytelling as well as playing musical instruments. In addition to providing a valuable cultural record, this process also serves to pass on local knowledge and practices to members of the community.

It is not only historical knowledge being preserved. New talent is also nurtured as members from across the community are encouraged to compose new music, all of which is professionally recorded and subsequently distributed to villages for communal use and public listening.

Muyco hopes that the stories and songs will serve as “voices of cultural value and in some ways [provide an opportunity to] protest against injustice” to help ensure their cultural self-definition, identity and ultimate survival.

*(identification based on how they call themselves in their songs)

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Further information

Associate Professor Dr Maria Christine Muyco | E-mail: muyochristine@gmail.com Composition and Theory, College of Music University of the Philippines Diliman

CD cover of Music of the Ata/Ati of Boracay in their struggle for Land and Celebration of Life sung by the Boracay Ati Youth Choir

Credit: Maria Christine Muyco

PEOPLE

R O H I N G YA REFUGEES FROM M YA N M A R : N EG OT I AT I N G A BETTER LIFE

Credit: Kazi Fahmida Farzana

A Rohingya woman and her child standing near a fishing village in Teknaf, Bangladesh - home for many undocumented refugees.

Dr Kazi Farzana | E-mail: fahmida@uum.edu.my School of International Studies Universiti Utara Malaysia

2017

Power blocs and interest groups exist within the camp and mediate between the refugees on the one hand and government and aid agencies on the other.

“The clearer picture that emerges from this everyday experience of camp life is the systematic and constant reminder that the refugees are outsiders and foreign in origin,” writes Farzana. As a result, she says, their identity of “otherness” is constantly reinforced.

Farzana recommends that future research look in greater detail at the plight of female refugees and the multiple forms of violence they face. Researchers should also investigate claims of radicalization among some Rohingya refugees. Finally, she recommends comparative international research on issues of statelessness and the politics of identity among refugees and exiled communities. “The Rohingya case is far from being an isolated issue, and Myanmar and Bangladesh are far from being the only states to be implicated in matters of forced migration,” she says.

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Rohingya refugees living in a camp in Bangladesh have developed a multi-dimensional social fabric that is more complex than the common refugee narratives depicted in some reports.

The Rohingya are an ethnic minority group from Myanmar, many of whom have been displaced to surrounding countries due to targeted military violence against them. Dr Kazi Farzana from the Universiti Utara Malaysia spent six months observing and interviewing 30 refugees in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Nayapara camp, located in the southernmost part of Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar. The camp has been home to an estimated 18,500 refugees since 1991.

Reports by international agencies have documented the deplorable living conditions of Rohingyas in refugee camps. But the narratives, says Farzana, leave out the refugees’ perception of their own lives. Despite the limitations of camp life, Farzana found the youth have managed to develop strong negotiation and basic survival skills.

Her paper, published in the Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, addresses the dynamics of dispute and collaboration among the camp’s refugees and with the government and UNHCR personnel responsible for its management.

Farzana interviewed youth above the age of 25 and found they were in a constant struggle to establish their basic human rights.

Although given basic food and shelter, they are not provided with education beyond the primary level. They are also prohibited from gathering in groups larger than five, leaving the camp without official permission, and working in the local villages. The Bangladeshi government maintains strict control over the camp and allows the UNHCR, the main aid agency working in the camp, very limited freedom to provide basic services.

Despite these difficulties, some youth have found a way to work within the camp selling vegetables and weaving fishnets, for example, while others have managed to illegally find work outside the camp, such as fishing, farming, and providing other forms of low-skilled labour. This involves developing relationships with the camp’s authorities and paying them bribes so they can temporarily leave the camp.

The Rohingya youth also use song and art to document their reflections on their lives and beliefs, and to maintain a connection to their identity.

Further information

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T H E P OW E R O F DAY CA R E

domly have children assigned between to receive the ages a dayofcare one cenand opening It usually women to provide hours,falls poor to training of staff, absentre six. Their or serve hamlets as thewere control randomly groupassigned with no teeism childcare, limited access and so substandard facilities.to day care to centre receive for athe dayduration care centre of the ortrial. serve as the represents barrier paid employment.

It usuallya falls to to women to provide control The group day care withcentres, no centre or for balwadis, the duration oper- childcare, Women who jobsaccess often need to bring so have limited to day care ated of thebytrial. the local non-governmental devel- represents their children to work,toleave at home a barrier paidthem employment. opment The day organization care centres, Seva Mandir, or balwadis, provide op- Women without who appropriate supervision have jobs often needortoentrust bring childcare, erated bynutritious the localfood, non-governmental basic medicines their olderchildren siblingsto towork, care for them. leave them at home and development preschool organization education. The Seva mothers Mandir, without Although some studies haveor examined appropriate supervision entrust were provide surveyed childcare, at thenutritious start of the food, program basic older the impacts on women’s economic opporsiblings to care for them.

workforce and generate income opportunities. While there are governmental and non-governmental organizations working on initiatives initiatives to improve access to affordable and reliable day care, there is a lack of evidence on the effects of such such programs. programs.

Arijit Nandi and his colleagues at McGill University and the Institute for Financial Financial Management and Research in India are keen to change this. this. Their three-year-long three-year-long study in rural communities in the Udaipur District inin Rajasthan, District Rajasthansupported will followby more Canada’ thans 3,000 International mothers Development in 160 village hamlets.

Research The Centre mothers(IDRC), have children will followbetween more than the3,000 ages of mothers one and in 160six.village Theirhamlets. hamlets Thewere mothers ran-

and medicines will beand surveyed preschool againeducation. one and The two tunities and show positive effects Although somegenerally studies have examined years mothers later, were withsurveyed a focus on at the bothstart social of and the the on impacts employment and hours worked,opporvery on women’s economic economic program and outcomes—such will be surveyed again as women’s one and tunities few have at the impacts other andlooked show generally positiveon effects two economic years status later, with and aopportunity, focus on both women’s social on household members. employment and hours worked, very and empowerment, economic outcomes—such and children’s educational as women’s fewThe believe theironfindings haveresearchers looked at the impacts other attainment—and economic status and primary opportunity, health outcomes, women’s household could helpmembers. improve programs run in India such empowerment, as the women’s and children’s mental educational health and and in other low-income where The researchers believecountries their findings their attainment—and children’s nutritional primary status. health outcomes, could women face similar barriers to economic help improve programs run in India such India as the currently women’s lacks mental a cohesive health and system their and and in social growth; strengthen the capacity other low-income countries where of day care children’s nutritional services,status. despite efforts in the women of women in the labour force;toand support face similar barriers economic lastIndia decade currently to expand lacks financial a cohesive assistance system and non-governmental organizations focused social growth; strengthen the capacity for of day public careday services, care and despite nutrition effortscentres. in the of onwomen allevderinequality. the labour force; and support last Problems decadeinclude to expand unreliable financial or insufficient assistance non-governmental organizations focused for opening publichours, day care poor and training nutrition of staff, centres. ab- on alleviating poverty and improving gender senteeism Problems include and substandard unreliablefacilities. or insufficient equality.

Credit: Seva Mandir

One of ofthe thefirst, first,formal formal evaluations evaluations of of a day a day care care program program in India in India forfor low-inlowcome incomehouseholds households could couldprovide provide empirical empirevidence ical evidence that will thatimprove will improve gender equality gender equality across the across country the and country beyond. and beyond.

Access to day care for children is often said to increase opportunities for women, particularly particularly in low-income communities. It can reduce barriers to participation in the

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Further information

Arijit Nandi | E-mail: arijit.nandi@mcgill.ca Institute for Health and Social Policy McGill University, University Canada

Edgard Rodriguez | Email: erodriguez@idrc.ca International Development Research Centre

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Credit: mezzotint / 123rf

Further information

2017

Professor Graham Kendall | E-mail: Graham.Kendall@nottingham.edu.my The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

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SHOULD SPORTS INVOLVE ACADEMIA IN RULE CHANGES?

The academic community could help identify loopholes in rules made to ensure fair play and entertaining sporting events.

All sports have their rules, and in many cases they remain reasonably static over the years. But some sports witness rule changes almost every year. Some rules are changed to ensure fair play. Others are added to make sure games have a predictable length or that the players aim to win in order to ensure entertainment for spectators. Sometimes, however, these changes can, and do, lead to unintended consequences.

Graham Kendall of the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus and Liam Lenten of Australia’s La Trobe University argue that sports bodies should include academics in their governing bodies to study the effects of rule changes before they are implemented.

Kendall and Lenten published a study in the European Journal of Operational Research, compiling a large number of cases in which rule changes “caused perverse unintended consequences,” says Kendall. “Many of the rule changes highlighted in this paper are aimed at making the sporting event more exciting,” he says. “These are the rules that often lead to an unexpected occurrence that was not foreseen, even if it has the desired effect for the vast majority of the time.”

‘Tanking’, or intentionally losing a game, usually with the aim of providing a future benefit, is one commonly seen consequence of some rule changes.

A well-known example occurred in the women’s doubles badminton competition at the 2012 Olympics in London. The tournament structure was clearly established to incentivize teams to be at the top of their group in order to earn a relatively easier match in the quarterfinals with the second-placed team in another group. In this case, however, eight players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were disqualified for playing to lose in order to face easier opponents in matches even further down the line. All eight players had already qualified for the quarterfinals but were looking ahead to whom they would be playing in the semi-finals. A rule change that could stop teams speculating how the knockout stages play out, suggest the researchers, is to draw lots for the quarterfinals only after all the group matches have taken place.

In athletics, competitors in swimming and running events (particularly sprints) used false starts to strategically ‘psyche-out’ fellow competitors. Previous rules stated that all runners were warned when one had a false start. Any subsequent false start would lead to a disqualification. This meant that the first false start was not penalized. In 2009, the International Association of Athletics Federations changed the rule so that an athlete who false-started was immediately disqualified. Although an important rule change, it creates a double-edged sword, Kendall and Lenten suggest. “The obvious downside is the possibility of high-profile disqualifications before the race is effectively run, of which there were quite a few in the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, none more so than Usain Bolt,” they write.

“We hope that one consequence of this paper is that the scientific community and the sports industry can work more closely together in order to study the effects of potential rule changes before they are implemented, or implemented in such a way that they can be studied before wide adoption,” conclude the researchers.

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PEOPLE Although the Islamic finance industry is growing at a rapid rate, researchers have highlighted areas of governance that must be reformed.

In 2007, the market price of Islamiccompliant bonds – or sukuk – fell sharply after Taqi Usmani of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Finance

However, researchers at Universiti Teknologi MARA, the International Islamic University in Malaysia and Humber College in Canada have found that issues may arise in governance systems — through which institutions ensure there is effective independent oversight of sharia — that leave IFIs open to sharia-related risk.

says that higher sharia authorities may not be effective if they focus too much on the regular controlling compliance for IFIs, resulting in negative impacts on the stability of the Islamic finance industry.

“If these practices are prolonged, there is no point to Islamic finance and it defeats the purpose of the emergence of IFIs,” she says.

ST R E N G T H E N I N G T H E G OV E R N A N C E OF ISLAMIC BANKS Institutions, a regulatory body in Bahrain, said that 85% of the bonds were not compliant with Islam’s sharia laws, highlighting growing concerns over the governance of Islamic finance.

A decade later, the industry is growing at a rapid rate and its products and services are widely offered across the world.

According to the Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre, the industry had assets of US$2.1 trillion at the end of 2015 and saw a compounded annual growth rate of 17.3% between 2009 and 2014.

Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) offer the same products as western banks with the big difference that sharia finance must be free from interest, gambling and investment in prohibited items.

This means that as well as dealing with conventional risk, IFIs need a sharia governance framework to ensure their practice of Islamic finance follows the tenets, conditions and principles propagated by Islam.

One area of concern is that there are four different Islamic legal schools of thought. Since they have different opinions on the same issues, this can lead to variation in the way Islamic finance is structured. On the other hand, this difference in opinions can be positive; Islam has not restricted society to follow only one school of thought if it does not involve the fundamentals.

Even so, this can result in ‘fatwa fishing’, whereby someone chooses between the available schools of thought and picks the one that best meets their immediate need.

Another problem is that different institutes have varying standards and practices.

For example, Bahrain has both a sharia governance committee at an institutional level and a sharia advisory board at a national level, whose role is limited to advising the central bank.

Lead researcher Nawal Kasim from Universiti Teknologi MARA

The researchers urge IFIs to pay more attention to tackling sharia risk management in order to address legal, reputational and liquidity risks.

They recommend that sharia committee members become actively involved in monitoring the operations of IFIs and that members be liable for breach of contract and negligence.

They also call on IFIs to make disclosures on sharia governance to complement the requirement of conventional governance codes such as the International Financial Reporting Standards and the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Another recommendation is to incorporate the findings of sharia audits to add value to the annual reports of IFIs. “These defects should be rectified soon, or else IFIs will end up with the possibility of bad reputations and losses,” Salman says.

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Further information

Associate Professor Dr Nawal Kasim | E-mail: nawal120@salam.uitm.edu.my Accounting Research Institute Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Credit: Piotr Pawinski / 123rf

M AT E R I A L S A common language for computer software tools that describes materials at their smallest scale could lead to designing faster and better materials.

Designing materials for use in the gadgets and structures that support our everyday lives involves understanding them at their atomic, electronic and macroscopic scales. Integrated computational materials engineering is a field that develops computational models so scientists can understand materials at these various scales, allowing them to tailor and optimize custom-designed microstructures with desired properties.

Several software tools are already available for this purpose. However, the ‘languages’ they use to describe materials vary. This makes it difficult for materials scientists to interchangeably use data from these tools.

A team at the Access research centre, associated with the Technical University of Aachen in Germany, has developed a common language for modelling and simulation tools used in studying the microstructures of materials. The idea is to enable seamless communication between

SPEAKING THE L A N G UAG E O F M I C R O ST R U C T U R E S

Fields

e.g. composition

Credit: Georg J. Schmitz, et

ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

Credit main image: Suman Bhaumik / 123rf

different commercial and/or academic tools, says Access senior scientist Georg Schmitz. “Such communication is necessary, as most of the current problems can’t be solved by a single tool alone, but need the interactions of different tools that also need to interact with experimental data,” he says.

The microstructures of materials undergo changes as they are processed and as materials operate. Their description must thus cover all the various changes that occur in materials over the course of their lifetime.

The team, which provides software tools for microstructure simulations, identified the needs and benefits of seamless communication with a variety of computational tools.

Representative Volume Element Ensemble(s) Feature(s) They developed a set of ‘metadata descriptors’ to describe the three-dimensional microstructure of any generic material. Their method was published in the journal Science and Technology effective material e.g. phases e.g. grains of Advanced Materials.

Metadata are data about data. They provide information that enables Hierarchical structure of materials data categorization, classification and structuring. In materials modelling, metadata play a key role in defining the properties, functions and eventually the performance of any component.

The team’s common language, or set of descriptors, can only describe the microstructure of a material at a given instant in time.

Future research will need to consider the addition of descriptors that cover dynamic and kinetic changes that happen in materials over time.

“This provides a flavour of what can become possible in the area of materials science and engineering: faster developments of new processes and new materials, of processes and materials having a smaller ecological footprint, and of new materials with new functionalities for new or better products,” says Schmitz.

Credit: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

Mikiko Tanifuji | E-mail: Tanifuji.Mikiko@nims.go.jp Science and Technology of Advanced Materials National Institute for Materials Science

Georg J. Schmitz | E-mail: g.j.schmitz@micress.de MICRESS® group at Access e.V.

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M AT E R I A L S Electronic oscillations in graphene could make a tabletop—or even handheld—source of X-rays a reality.

Since their discovery in 1895, X-rays have led to significant advances in science, medicine and industry. From probing distant galaxies to screening at airport security and facilitating medical diagnosis, they have allowed us to look beyond the surface and see what lies beneath.

Now, a collaboration between the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

can be used to confine and manipulate light on scales of around ten nanometres.

The team first developed a robust simulation tool that models the exact physics of electrons interacting with a plasmon field sustained on a graphene sheet deposited on a piece of 'dielectric’, or insulating, material. By performing numerical simulations, the team showed that this set-up induces a ‘wiggling’ motion in electrons fired through the graphene plasmons, causing the electrons to produce high-frequency X-ray radiation. The simulations agreed with the analytical theory developed by

HAND-HELD X - R AY S O U R C E S

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(MIT) in the US has proposed a versatile, the team to explain how electrons and directional X-ray source that could fit plasmons interact to produce X-rays. on a laboratory bench and is based on One standout characteristic of such the intriguing two-dimensional material a source will be its ‘pointability’, which will graphene. increase efficiency and hence reduce costs X-rays are high-frequency electro- by ensuring that all the generated radiation magnetic waves that can be generated goes where it’s intended. This will make the using X-ray tube technology or from huge source promising for medical treatments sources like synchrotrons and kilometre- as it could be used to target tumours more long free electron lasers. precisely and hence minimize damage to But X-ray tube sources, popularly used surrounding organs and cells. in medical diagnostics, emit radiation in all Perhaps most attractive will be the directions, wasting a significant amount of source’s versatility. The output radiation the generated X-rays. They are also not frequency can be tuned in real time from ‘tunable’, meaning that a different X-ray longer infrared rays to shorter X-rays by source must be installed in a diagnostic modifying various elements of the source, device for each desired wavelength. such as the speed of the electrons, the Kilometre-long free electron lasers, on frequency of the graphene plasmons and the other hand, can produce intense, tunable the conductivity of the graphene.

X-rays by accelerating free electrons to This flexible, compact source is promextremely high energies and then causing ising as a cost-effective alternative to the them to ‘wiggle’ using magnets. But these high-intensity beams used for fundaenormous X-ray sources only exist in a few mental scientific and biomedical research. places in the world and are housed in very “Although there is a long way to go to actual large, expensive facilities. realization, this is a very exciting research An X-ray source that is both small and direction,” says Liang Jie Wong from SIMpowerful has been much sought after for Tech. “Developing an intense X-ray source some time. that can fit on a table or be held in one’s To this end, the team of SIMTech-MIT hand would potentially revolutionize many researchers employed graphene, a one- areas of science and technology.” atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms, which, The team next plans to experimentally among other things, can support plasmons: verify their concept with proof-of-principle collections of electronic oscillations that trials.

Further information

Dr Liang Jie Wong | E-mail: wonglj@SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology Agency for Science, Technology and Research

A free electron ‘wiggled’ by graphene plasmons emits an X-ray pulse.

Credit: A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology

M AT E R I A L S

GREENING THE PHARMA I N D U ST R Y Photosynthetic system

5-HMF using green chemistry creates only water as a byproduct.

Researchers at the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry say that older, oil-based forms of 5-HMF decompose very quickly, a deal breaker for large-scale industrial use.

Many platform chemicals are oils, but oilbased 5-HMF has an unusual problem. With as few as 1 to 3% impurities, it oxidizes and degrades badly in less than a month. The degraded feedstock reduces refining efficiency, increases waste and drastically cuts yields of the desired product.

Repurifying it is not cost effective.

The researchers developed a catalysed process to make a crystalline solid form of 5-HMF that is cleaner than the oil-based version—around 99.9% pure—and doesn’t degrade. They did this by continually evaporating water from the surface of the biomass during the reaction. This caused the ionized

liquid still in the system to form what the researchers call nanostructured water compartments. These aided efficient catalysis and prevented impurities, resulting in a stable form of the chemical that gives much higher yields in model reactions.

The researchers are now working to develop further efficient green processes to produce pharmaceuticals and drug molecules directly from biomass.

Dr Valentine P. Ananikov | E-mail: val@ioc.ac.ru Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry Russian Academy of Sciences

Further information

2017

Credit: Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry

Biomass-based products

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Synthesizing life-saving pharmaceuticals from natural biomass can be more cost-efficient than traditional methods and produces fewer toxic byproducts.

By applying ‘green chemistry’ techniques, Russian researchers say they can use plant biomass to produce industrial quantities of a basic ingredient, or ‘platform chemical’, for useful pharmaceutical compounds.

The researchers have used the platform chemical to manufacture model products that include, for example, a stomach antacid.

There is potential for far more. The chemical, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), is under research in several fields of chemistry and appears poised to be a building block for a new generation of organic synthesis procedures.

The new process is attractive because it neutralises carbon, which contributes to global climate change. The source material, plant biomass, draws in carbon through natural photosynthesis. The new process then converts this biomass to 5-HMF. Then the starter molecule is further processed to make other chemicals with uses in organic chemistry, materials science, biofuels and pharmaceutical drugs.

Using environmentally sustainable processes to synthesize commercial molecules costs less and creates less waste than traditional chemical manufacturing methods.

Synthesizing a kilogram of a drug using traditional chemical methods creates anywhere from 30 to 100 kilograms of waste byproducts, many of them toxic. Making

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M AT E R I A L S

Credit: Dejan Bozic / 123rf

A transparent, printed metal film may, one day, coat smartphone screens

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Roll-to-roll printing of a conductive metal ink offers an inexpensive, high performance alternative to today’s touchscreen technology.

A touchscreen is an essential feature of many modern devices, but the material that gives most screens their touch sensitivity is in short supply. By adapting newspaper-printing technology, researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have developed a low-cost alternative capable of printing conductive metal ink in lines so thin that they are invisible to the naked eye. A film of this fine metal mesh could form the touch-sensing layer of future smartphone screens.

Most touchscreens rely on an electrically conductive material called indium tin oxide (ITO). As skin is conductive, touching the screen alters its electric field, which is detected as a tap. Crucially for a surface layer of a screen, ITO is also optically transparent. Very few materials possess this combination of properties. Industry Further information

has responded to the spike in indium prices accompanying the rising demand for ITO by intensifying the search for alternative transparent conductive materials.

XinQuan Zhang from A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and his co-workers are working on a promising alternative touch-sensitive film: a printed, mesh-like pattern of ultra-fine metal lines, created using roll-to-roll gravure printing. Gravure printing traditionally uses an etched mould to transfer ink onto paper. Here, the etched cylindrical mould instead transfers a precise pattern of conductive metal ink onto the touch-sensing substrate.

Light from the screen passes through the holes in the printed mesh. Before this study, the finest lines that could be printed this way were approximately 50 micrometres wide, which blocked more than a third of the screen’s light.

Zhang and his co-workers have overcome this limitation through diamond micro-engraving. Instead of using a laser

Dr XinQuan Zhang | E-mail: zhangxq@SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology Agency for Science, Technology and Research

to etch the grid-like pattern of tiny inkwells into the printer’s cylindrical mould, Zhang uses a tiny diamond-tipped cutting tool to pattern the roller using ultraprecision machining technology.

Originally developed to manufacture lenses and optical components, “ultraprecision machining has never been used for gravure printing,” Zhang says. His team successfully adapted the machine to cut tiny inkwells on the roller, two-and-a-half times smaller than a laser could etch. Using this roller, the team printed a mesh of metal lines just 19 micrometres across.

More than 80% of visible light passed through this mesh, matching ITO’s optical performance.

Although ultraprecision machining can produce very finely patterned rollers, the process is slow, says Zhang. “This is one disadvantage compared to lasers,” he adds.

Next the team will improve the process of ultraprecision machining to make it faster, so the roller mould will be affordable to industry.

M AT E R I A L S A single-step process transforms carbon dioxide into star-shaped molecules that are promising building blocks for useful polymeric materials.

Researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have harnessed the power of carbon dioxide to make two symmetrical star-shaped molecules in a single step.

These molecules could be used to build complex, functional polymeric materials useful for personal care, coatings and drug delivery.

Carbon dioxide is a cheap and accessible feedstock that makes it an attractive source of potentially useful molecules.

“But transforming carbon dioxide is not typically easy,” explains lead researcher Luo He-Kuan from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering.

His team has developed a simple route to use carbon dioxide to make functional multi-carbonate compounds that can be used as building blocks for more

complicated materials. They created symmetrical benzene rings with three or six identical arms comprising carbonate groups terminated by carbon–carbon triple bonds, or ‘alkynes’. “We can integrate the carbon dioxide into the molecule without the need for high temperatures or high pressure,” says Luo. The star-shaped molecules were made in a single step. The team introduced carbon dioxide from dry ice to an alcohol with an alkyne end group and benzene rings decorated with either three or six alkyl bromide groups. “At the beginning, however, only some of the branches reacted so we could not get the desired compound,” Luo explains.

The team fine-tuned the process and found the reactions worked most efficiently at room temperature; with the carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressure; and with the addition of a promoter, tetrabutylammonium bromide, and the base, potassium carbonate. “We tried many

times and after a few months, we finally got [the bromide groups in] all six branches to react [with the alcohol],” he says.

Adding the promoter to the mix doubled the product produced. “It is likely that the tetrabutylammonium cation enhances the rate of carbon dioxide incorporation by stabilizing the carbonate anion,” says Luo. The reaction time is also vital. “We needed to be patient and let the reaction run to completion to ensure that all the branches reacted.” The synthesis of the three-armed and six-armed star-shaped molecule took two and four days respectively.

The alkynes on the end of each arm in these molecules should theoretically be able to react with a host of different molecules to produce a range of complex or functional materials. “We are currently trying to use the six-armed, branched molecule to build more functional star-shaped molecules, which may find applications in personal care, coatings and drug delivery,” says Luo.

Credit: Supparsorn Wantarnagon / 123rf

MAKING M O L EC U L E S T H AT T W I N K L E ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS 2017

Carbon dioxide is a useful feedstock gas for the synthesis of complex functional materials.

Credit: A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering

Dr Luo He-Kuan | E-mail: luoh@imre.a-star.edu.sg Institute of Materials Research and Engineering Agency for Science, Technology and Research

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M AT E R I A L S

Credit: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

Ultra-sensitive devices are being developed to detect biological and chemical compounds.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) devices are the benchmark in optical sensing.

They are used for detecting biomarkers of disease, discovering drugs, analysing chemicals, ensuring food quality and safety, and detecting pollutants in our environment.

SPR devices can detect molecules within a few hundred nanometres of their metal surfaces. When a target molecule binds to sensing molecules placed on the device’s surface, this alters the path of light travelling through the medium, changing its ‘refractive index’. This change is used to indicate the molecule’s presence.

Scientists are working on improving the sensitivity, compactness and cost of SPR devices by modifying the materials used to make them.

Brian Corbett and Muhammad Khan of University College Cork in Ireland reviewed the latest research in the field of ‘Bloch surface wave’ devices, publishing their findings in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Bloch surface waves (BSW) are light waves that travel on the surface of insulating —or ‘dielectric’—materials, such as glass. Researchers are testing the use of dielectric materials, instead of the metals typically used for the surfaces of SPR devices, to

develop BSW devices. By doing so, they are detecting even smaller changes in the material’s refractive index.

“Bloch surface waves can be used for a variety of sensing applications,” says Corbett. “They can also be potentially used as a platform for compact integrated optical circuits,” he adds. Corbett expects BSW devices to become commercially available in the coming few years.

Corbett and Khan designed a simple BSW sensor, employing silicon as its surface material, which they believe has practical advantages due to the ease with which it delivers and detects light waves.

“The research shows that surface waves can be easily generated and they provide a sensitive measure to detect the binding of a material at a surface,” says Corbett. “These sensors can provide real-time sensing and may be a way to screen for the presence of biomarkers for different diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, at the doctor’s surgery.”

BSW sensors still need to be tested for their durability in real environments, says Corbett. The team’s aim is to develop an on-chip sensing platform with high sensitivity that can ultimately be used in bench top or even smartphone-based devices, he says, with potential application in water quality monitoring.

SENSING HARMFUL MOLECULES WITH LIGHT ASIA RE SEARC H NEWS

Light waves that travel on insulating or dielectric materials such as glass can increase the sensitivity of optical sensors and may be available commercially within a few years.

2017 Credit: andreadonetti / 123rf

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Further information

Brian Corbett | E-mail: brian.corbett@tyndall.ie Tyndall National Institute University College Cork

Mikiko Tanifuji | E-mail: Tanifuji.Mikiko@nims.go.jp Science and Technology of Advanced Materials National Institute for Materials Science

2017

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