Research News

Research on moon dust lands national award for undergraduate

Full Moon as seen from Apollo 11. Photo: NASA

Michelle Thompson accepts her award for the best research poster in the physical and earth sciences division at the Rising Stars of Research conference. Thompson’s research is going to help protect the health of NASA astronauts and she recently received a national undergraduate research award for her work. The fourth-year Queen’s student garnered the top prize in the physical and earth sciences research poster competition during the Rising Stars of Research conference at the University of British Columbia. Thompson’s poster summarizes her study of the composition of moon dust, which she completed during a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) internship at the Johnson Space Center last summer. Thompson examined lunar soil that was collected during the Apollo 11 mission. She found that the dust is composed of glass and a high concentration of reduced iron.

The research is vital because NASA plans to return to the moon and build a sustainable, long-term human presence. The iron in moon dust poses a health risk to humans if they breathe it in and it enters their bloodstream. NASA will have to design equipment and machinery that can withstand the build-up of dust in the mechanics of the instrument.

Edmonton breaks ground on new municipal wasteto-biofuels facility

The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association lauded the ground breaking of Enerkem Inc.’s new waste-to-biofuels facility as a prime example of global Canadian leadership in the development of next generation biofuels.

At a ceremony attended by Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, Québec based Enerkem broke ground on a new 36 million litre a year municipal waste-tobiofuels facility. It is the first facility of its kind in the world.

“Today, Canada breaks new ground in the development of advanced biofuels,” said Gordon Quaiattini, president of the CRFA. “This plant is a concrete example of Canadian leadership in renewable fuels. This plant is good news for our energy supply, good news for the local economy, and good news for the environment.”

Enerkem’s advanced biofuels plant, which will be located in Edmonton, AB, is the world’s first industrial-scale biofuels project to use municipal solid waste as feedstock. Using Enerkem’s proprietary clean technology, the $ 80 million biofuels facility will produce enough biofuels to fuel over 400,000 cars per year running on a 5% ethanol blend. It will be built, owned and operated by Enerkem Alberta Biofuels, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Enerkem. The City of Edmonton and Enerkem Alberta Biofuels have signed a 25-year agreement to convert 100,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste into biofuels annually.

The advanced biofuels facility will create more than 180 direct and indirect jobs during the operations, construction and engineering phases. It will contribute to the federal and provincial Renewable Fuel Standards, taking effect in 2010.

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Clinical Trials & Patents

n Oncolytics Biotech Inc. (Calgary, AB) announces that the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) intends to conduct a randomized Phase II trial of weekly paclitaxel versus weekly paclitaxel with REOLYSIN® in patients with persistent or recurrent, ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer (GOG186H). The study has been approved and will be sponsored by the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, under its Clinical Trials Agreement with Oncolytics. Oncolytics will provide clinical supplies of REOLYSIN for this study. The Study Chair will be Dr. David E. Cohn of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. “Ovarian cancer is typically diagnosed at the later stages, because earlier stage disease usually has no obvious symptoms,” said Dr. David E. Cohn. “On this basis, surgical interventions used in earlier stages are often supplemented by chemotherapy; however, there are limited treatment options for patients with recurrent disease.”

n Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Vancouver, BC) has initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating its novel topical XEN402 therapy for the treatment of PHN. XEN402 has been developed by Xenon as a topical ointment formulation and recently concluded a 21-day cumulative dose safety tolerability phase 1 study in normal human volunteers. The product was well tolerated and achieved good drug concentrations in the skin. Topical XEN402 is being developed by Xenon for painful neuropathic disorders such as PHN and targets the sodium channel sub-type Nav1.7. This target is highly expressed in sensory nerve endings and its expression has been shown to be upregulated in chronic painful conditions such as PHN. “This is an important step forward in the development of topical XEN402,” said Xenon President & CEO, Dr. Simon Pimstone.

n YM BioSciences Inc. (Mississauga, ON) announces the conclusion of dose-escalation in the Phase I portion of its Phase I/II clinical trial of CYT387 at Mayo Clinic in patients with myelofibrosis. In total, 21 patients were treated in Phase I, with no voluntary withdrawals reported. CYT387 has shown significant activity in reducing spleen size and controlling constitutional symptoms in these patients. To date, 15 patients have been enrolled into the Phase II portion of the study. Given the favourable biological activity and safety data, the company intends to expand the present program from 60 to 120 patients at up to six centres in the United States, Canada and Australia, subject to regulatory approval. Detailed safety and activity data for CYT387 are planned to be presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in Orlando, FL in December this year.

U of T researchers identify trio of genes that help Salmonella cause disease

University of Toronto researchers have uncovered three genes in the Salmonella bacteria critical for it to cause disease and withstand antibiotic treatment and may hold the key to improved disease treatment.

The study was published in the journal Molecular Cell and conducted in partnership with laboratories headed by Dr. Michael Ibba at Ohio State University and Dr. Ferric Fang at the University of Washington in Seattle. The team found that three bacterial genes called poxA, yjeK and efp work together to protect the bacterial cell from stresses it encounters during infection and antibiotic treatment. Mice infected with Salmonella strains lacking any one of these genes do not get sick. Even more crucial is the discovery that these Salmonella strains are also highly sensitive to treatment with a variety of antibiotics and disinfectants.

“Salmonella continues to be a major source of food poisoning in North America. In the past few years we have seen numerous recalls of food products including a major recall of peanut products just two years ago and a current outbreak in Canada resulting in the recall of headcheese.” said Professor William Navarre of U of T Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Genetics and lead author of the study.

“We now aim to develop drugs that can inactivate poxA, yjeK or efp. By preventing these bacteria from responding appropriately to stress, we predict we will be able to prevent bacterial disease and decrease their resistance to antibiotics. We’re excited by the fact these genes exist in other bacteria that cause disease including E. coli so our strategy may work in cases beyond Salmonella.”

The three genes are critical for bacterial resistance to chemical stress. “Despite their small size bacteria are actually quite sophisticated” said Navarre, “Salmonella and E. coli bacteria grown in a mild amount of disinfectant or antibiotics are able to make adjustments so that they can survive without too much of a problem. In order to do this they must be able to detect that they are in trouble and activate the genes necessary to make the appropriate changes to their metabolism and cell structure.

The researchers, in collaboration with the University of Toronto Structural Genomics Group headed by Professor Aled Edwards and Professor Alexei Savchenko, also determined the molecular structure of the PoxA protein and found that it was strikingly similar to a “tRNA synthetase,” an enzyme that modifies tRNA. “It’s a beautiful case of molecular mimicry where a molecule that usually modifies a tRNA evolved to instead modify a protein that looks like a tRNA.”

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