An Accelerator That Will Treat Arthritis
Particle accelerators are most often associated with physicists trying to unlock the secrets of matter. But Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have built an accelerator that will treat rheumatoid arthritis by bombarding the affected joints with subatomic particles. The technique could be up to 10 times cheaper than surgery and would require little, if any, hospitalization, the researchers say.
The technique, dubbed Boron Neutron Capture Synovectomy, involves two steps. First, a compound containing boron is injected into the arthritic joint. There it concentrates in the synovia, the tissue that becomes inflamed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. A beam of neutrons is then directed at the area.
The neutrons are absorbed by the boron, which splits into two highly energetic particles that destroy the synovial cells while largely sparing nearby healthy cells. The work, which is still in its early stages, is being undertaken by MIT with collaborators from Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Newton Scientific Inc.
Future Shock: A gene that is “shocked” into initiating the production of proteins that can curtail injury may lead to new therapeutic approaches for surgeries such as organ transplants or coronary bypass.
UC San Francisco researchers have reported the first demonstration from tightly controlled experiments that a “heat shock” protein--HSP72, which is made naturally by cells in response to stress--can limit damage caused by a heart attack in a living animal. Their findings bolster the idea that this protein prevents cells from dying due to stress from lack of oxygen.
Heat-shock proteins, the first of which was identified in fruit flies more than 30 years ago, are so named because an increase in body temperature was observed to cause an increase in their production. However, these proteins are now known to be made in response not only to heat, but also to other forms of stress, and are thus thought to be a general defense mechanism for cells.
Although HSP72-boosting interventions probably couldn’t be done quickly enough to help patients having heart attacks, such a strategy would be useful in scheduled heart surgeries. Drugs or other interventions that quickly bolster heat-shock protein production or that mimic its cell-saving activity might be used to limit potential damage to the heart during surgery or to prolong the healthy survival of donated organs awaiting transplantation.
Tracking Clouds: Weather forecasters have always tracked clouds, but some clouds require especially close attention. Take the radioactive material spewed into the sky after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986. Or the smoke from the oil fires in Kuwait during and after the Persian Gulf War, the smoke ash from the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo volcano after it erupted in 1991 or the release of sulfuric acid during a tank leak in Richmond, Calif., in 1993.
Each of these clouds was tracked by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability. The ARAC team not only determines the path and extent of an atmospheric release, it also provides estimates of the degree of toxic exposure to humans from a harmful release.
A team of meteorologists, physicists, computer scientists and engineers uses sophisticated computer models to simulate the movement of these clouds through the air and over land and sea. The models use information from ARAC’s databases of global maps and terrain along with databases on hazardous materials and their health effects.
ARAC can provide two-to-three-hour hazard projections for releases at any point on Earth, often within half an hour of a release. In the future, ARAC may play a greater role in efforts to stop the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons and in the fight against terrorism.
Kathleen Wiegner, a freelance writer specializing in science and technology, can be reached via e-mail at kkwrite@aol.com
